Serpentine
by Leona Rose
Summary: Hermione accepts an apprenticeship from Professor Severus Snape for a year. She ends up with more than she bargained for. To his chagrin, so does he. Eventual M.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"But that usually calls for five grams of hyssop!"

"Miss Granger! I said three, so it is three. I will see you in detention tonight at seven—oh, and fifty points from Gryffindor for your back-talk."

Hermione stared down at the table, her eyes burning with tears; she was sure the recipe called with five grams, but if Professor Snape were unmoving, so it would have to be.

"Don't let him get to you," said Harry quietly beside her. "Let's just make this and get it done with."

Hermione tried to concentrate on the task, but as Snape began making his rounds, her heart thudded. He was sure to find something wrong with her and Harry's potion since she'd gotten in trouble. When he stopped by their table, she sucked in a breath. Fighting for Snape's approval wasn't a foreign concept, and she often cared about his more than other professors, simply because he was such an unlikeable individual. But she also found herself inexplicably drawn to him, perhaps fuelled by her desperation to get him to like her, but more than once she'd caught herself fantasising about Severus Snape.

"The colour's good, as well as consistency. Continue," he merely remarked and moved on. Hermione sighed in relief.

Once class ended, Harry, Hermione, and Ron sat down in the Great Hall for lunch.

"You should know better out of all of us," said Ron to Hermione through a bite of sandwich.

"Thanks, Ron. Now I see the error of my ways." Hermione snapped, her patience wearing particularly thin.

She gathered up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, almost hitting Neville, who was seated beside her.

"I'm going to the library. See you after my detention."

-o-

Severus looked up as Hermione entered the room.

"I should tell you that the recipe for the Helionix Potion does indeed call for five grams of hyssop," he said coolly, noting the brief flash of anger in her eyes. "However, I sought to make a less powerful version of it, so I amended it to call for three."

"Then why did you do this?" she gestured to the room, quickly adding, "Sir."

"Because I do not want that sort of example set for my classroom, Miss Granger," he said calmly. "Even after having your lot for seven years, I do not doubt that someone would dare commenting like that to me. I shall not tolerate your disrespect time and time again."

He rose to his feet.

"Now, come with me. You'll be working in one of the greenhouses."

She followed silently behind him, their footsteps on the stone and then the grass the only sounds in the still air. Although he couldn't stand how much of a know-it-all she was, he held a certain, inexplicable fondness for her, even if it _was _tinged in annoyance. Watching her mature into a woman had been a rewarding experience; he'd seen her advance from an annoying girl who knew too much, alienating many, to a more subtle, yet still sometimes as annoying, young woman with a sense of self-confidence that didn't translate to arrogance.

She was not dating anyone as far as Severus had seen, and it was a wonder to him; she'd blossomed in all the right places, and he considered her quite pretty. He was curious as to who wouldn't recognise that in her, although it may have been her choice not to date. He'd never seen relationships as necessary, and often found the time spent alone was time he advanced more as a wizard. Still, he would no doubt have fancied her in his years at Hogwarts had she been there, but those times were passed. He was an older man now, and had no time for dabbling in fantasies—especially about a witch nineteen years his junior.

"You will be cleaning up the garden," he said once he reached their destination. "This is my own greenhouse that Madam Sprout has set aside for my classes. I trust you to this task because I believe you out of anyone—even Mister Malfoy—have the most knowledge of plants. You would take care not to pull up the wrong plants."

"Yes, sir," she said, slightly straightening at his praise, if it could be considered that.

"I will be in my office. If you have any doubts, please come see me. I would hate to see more points taken from Gryffindor. After you are done, you'll return to my office for dismissal."

He turned on his heel and left, breathing in the cool April-night air once outside. He resisted the urge to go back into the greenhouse and watch her work, but he trusted her—even if she was a Gryffindor.

-o-

By the time Hermione was through, her hands were covered in dirt up to her elbows, her cheek smeared with it, and she'd discarded her robes as she built up a sweat while working. She was hardly in any mood to appear back in Professor Snape's office, but she knew if she didn't, she'd have to pay severe consequences.

Snape smirked when she entered his office for the second time, but said nothing outwardly about her appearance.

"Sit down, Miss Granger."

She did so nervously while he regarded her, eyes drifting over her slowly.

"I realise you are soon to graduate. I have no doubt of the outcome of your N.E.W.T.s—that is, I suspect they will be up to your usual standard. Because of this suspicion, I would like to offer you an apprenticeship."

She stared at him, waiting for some sign of a lie, but he kept his eyes locked with hers.

"If you would rather not, I need to know soon so I may contact any others or put the word out."

"No, I—I mean…are you sure?"

"Unless you aren't," he said, and leaned forward on his elbows; he was so close, she could feel his breath on her face. "Out of the students I've taught in my seventeen years at Hogwarts, you are the most qualified to become the next teacher of Potions. As Professor McGonagall has offered me the position of Deputy Headmaster by the fall of 1999, I find the timing favourable to approach you. Have you been considering other career options?"

"Well, I've thought of becoming an Auror, but really, with all that we've been through, I think I should like a break from battling dark wizards for a bit. Aside from that, I've considered vague positions within the Ministry, but teaching has always been a sort of passion of mine. I think it would come easily."

Her heart thudded heavily against her ribs, her mouth dry, and her brain slow to respond. But a part of her ached for the position, and for the apprenticeship. Perhaps this would be her chance to become closer to Snape, to earn favour with him, and to learn more about him.

"Should you accept the offer, it will give you a year to train under me," continued Snape, still leaning forward. "I will be no easier than I have been to you in school, however."

"I know," she said quietly. "May I have a few days to think it over?"

"You may," he finally sat back, "but only a few days. Professor McGonagall wanted me to have a candidate by the end of term. You may leave."

"Yes, sir," she rose, hands shaking. "Th-thank you, it's really quite an honour."

"Yes, go on now," he said, picking up his quill, dipping it into the inkwell. "Oh, and Miss Granger, I would appreciate if you kept this quiet for now at least."

"Yes, of course," she said, and quickly left, pulling on her robes as the chill of the dungeon reached her.

Hermione went straight up to the girls' dormitories after bidding Harry and Ron a hasty goodnight, but didn't fall asleep until much later. Her mind whirled with pictures of herself in two years, standing where Snape stood all those years ago, giving her speech on the expected decorum of the classroom to all her students. She wouldn't be as harsh as Snape, of course, but would have high expectations all the same. After what she'd been through during her time at Hogwarts, she felt many students had little excuse to at least _try_. Unfortunately, she observed a lazy mentality with many of the lower-level students.

After a restless night filled with Snape vaguely floating in and out of ambiguous dreams, Hermione rose and went to breakfast, dropping into the seat across from Harry and Ron.

"You look like hell, Hermione," said Ron tactfully. "What's up with you?"

"Thanks," she spat. "I had a late night, is all. I couldn't fall asleep. I guess detention made me more awake than I would have liked."

"What'd the git have you do, anyway?" asked Ron.

"Pull weeds in his greenhouse, very tedious."

"Ron and I had this theory that he'd taken you out into the Forbidden Forest and made you battle some creature," said Harry with a wry grin. "I wouldn't put it past him."

"I doubt he'd put a student in that much danger," she rolled her eyes. "I'm afraid it wasn't that exciting, though."

She dared a glance over at the High Table. Snape was staring at a group of Slytherins whose voices were quickly rising as they seemed to be in a heated argument. She yearned to tell Harry and Ron what he'd offered her, but kept true to her word; she wouldn't tell anybody, not even her parents in her weekly letter to them.

By the end of the week, Hermione had made up her mind, and lingered after Friday's Potions class, urging Harry and Ron to go ahead. Draco Malfoy waited behind her, so she merely leaned over his desk.

"My answer is yes," she said, feeling a tug of satisfaction that Malfoy would be squirming with curiosity as to what they discussed.

"Excellent," Snape replied with only the slightest intonation of relief in his voice. "Thank you, Miss Granger."

She turned on her heel, flashing a grin to Malfoy as she breezed by. As she left the dungeons, she heard scurrying footsteps behind her, and was yanked backwards before she could react. Malfoy's eyes flashed at her.

"Just what was _that _about?"

"Business between Professor Snape and me," Hermione replied hotly. "I suggest you keep your nose out of it. It doesn't concern you in the slightest."

"I s'pose you're making some sort of deal with him for your N.E.W.T.s," he sneered. "Afraid I'll beat you, Granger?"

She snorted.

"Hardly."

"I bet you're shagging him."

"Don't be so convinced, Malfoy. You're still his favourite, I'm sure. If you'll excuse me, I've got to get to my next class."

"What was that about?" said Harry almost accusingly as she slid into the seat next to him in Transfiguration class. She rolled her eyes at the same words she'd heard from Malfoy.

"I needed to discuss my grade on my last essay with Professor Snape," replied Hermione smoothly. Lying came easily to her now. "I found an error in the remarks he wrote."

"Does it matter? I'm sure you got top marks anyway," snorted Ron.

"It does matter, Ron. Now be quiet, McGonagall's starting."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

In June, Hermione graduated with highest honours, receiving an Outstanding on all her N.E.W.T.s. She informed Harry and Ron of her apprenticeship upon leaving, and spent two hours detailing all the aspects she anticipated of the year she would spend with Severus Snape—many details of which she'd learned only two weeks before, and with scant elaboration.

Hermione's parents were naturally concerned over her decision to accept such an offer. They remembered the grief Snape had caused their daughter in her seven years at school, and continued asking over the duration of the summer if she still wanted to carry through with it. September arrived, and her decision remained unchanged, and so she set out on the first. It was her eighth journey to Hogwarts, and her first unaccompanied by anybody her age. It was an unsettling feeling and didn't help her nerves in the slightest.

Of course, all Hogwarts staff had been notified of Hermione's new position, and as she passed Hagrid coming off the platform, he gave a nervous smile. She greeted McGonagall in the entrance hall, barely having time to stand and be nostalgic. The older witch looked torn between hugging Hermione and shaking her hand.

"Welcome back, Hermione."

"Thank you, Professor," Hermione beamed, though her hands were shaking.

McGonagall chuckled. "You may call the teachers by their given names since you are no longer a student. Severus is waiting by the dungeons to show you your quarters before the feast."

Hermione nodded and set off for her home for the year. Sure enough, Severus Snape was waiting by the descending hallway.

"Miss Granger," Snape nodded curtly. "Your luggage, of course, has already been placed in your room. Follow me."

She did so silently; much as she had the night she'd served detention. They passed through the empty classroom and his office, and entered another room through a door she hadn't noticed before. Her luggage sat on the bed, including a carrier which held Crookshanks. The bed was a standard four-poster with deep purple hangings; all the furniture was dark—maybe rosewood?—and adjoined on the eastern wall was a small bathroom.

Hermione was impressed.

Snape cleared his throat. "I will not have access to your quarters while you are staying here. It will open only for your wand. The charms on your room are unusually strong protective ones, so I suppose something must have…occurred…with one of your predecessors."

She blushed at the hint of something sexual coming from Snape, of all people. A corner of his mouth twitched.

"I hope purple's fine. I didn't have your preferences at hand."

She almost laughed, but maintained stoicism in front of him. They weren't at that level of comfort yet.

"It's wonderful. Thank you."

She let Crookshanks out of his carrier, and the orange bottlebrush-tailed cat immediately began sniffing around.

"The feast is waiting on us, Miss Granger," he reminded pointedly.

Sitting at the High Table felt surreal, and Hermione blushed at the realisation that the students were looking up at them as she had done just last year.

"Returning students will remember last year's Head Girl, Hermione Granger," McGonagall announced after the Sorting Hat sang its annually-different song and sorted the first years. "She has returned to serve as Professor Snape's apprentice. I expect all of you to treat her with the same respect you afford your professors."

Hermione spotted Ginny, her Head Girl badge gleaming in the candlelight. The redhead offered a small smile; no doubt she'd had to endure her brother's constant fussing over Hermione's decision. After the feast, she caught up with Hermione.

"Are you sure about this?" she hissed.

"Well, it's a bit late now, isn't it?" Hermione waved her hand dismissively. "It's only for a year, and he's been all right so far."

Ginny sighed. "Look, I told Ron that you know what you can handle, but he pretty much made me swear to look after you." She rolled her eyes. "So if you need anything, you know where I live."

"Thanks," Hermione smiled. As annoying as Ron could be, he _was _just protective. "Your Head Boy's waiting on you, and I'm off to bed. Goodnight, Ginny."

Hermione quickly hugged her, and shuffled off towards the dungeons. Her feet felt like lead as she realised how tired she actually was. Her mind had been whirring during the entire train ride, and she must have read page 254 of her book twenty times as she struggled to concentrate. She'd given up on reading and tried to sleep, but that didn't work either. She took a walk along the corridors, but finally returned to her compartment, accepting her restlessness.

A loudly-purring Crookshanks settled in bed next to her after she'd brushed her teeth and changed.

"I think it'll be all right, too, Crookshanks," Hermione said, blowing out the candle. "We'll find out tomorrow, won't we?"

-o-

After breakfast (which was unpleasant, as everything tasted like paper), Severus met her in the classroom before the first-years filed in. She would swear he'd picked out the largest set of robes he had to make himself look even more like a strict bat. Her eyes had to adjust to the darkness of the classroom; in typical Snape fashion, he'd pulled the heavy curtains tightly shut.

"You will make sure students are following _all _directions during their class-time. Additionally, you will clean the students' areas after they leave, before the next class arrives. The only exception to this is if I have had to give detention to a student, or Heaven forbid more than one. The older students pose less of a problem, although your class had quite a few _problems_."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the jab, and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blurting out that she had a problem with being only a maid.

"I will not tolerate insolence, and you are to uphold the expectations I have of classroom decorum. Merlin knows you can be forthright when you want."

"You've made your point," snapped Hermione.

"Do not forget your position," barked Severus. "You are only one step above student, Miss Granger, and I will tolerate no disrespect."

She bit the inside of her cheek again, and a group of first-year Hufflepuffs saved her by shuffling inside the classroom uncertainly.

"Are you going to be teaching us today?" piped up a boy as he took his seat.

"No, sorry," said Hermione with a sympathetic smile.

At least they would have a better experience than she did in her first Potions class, even if marginally. Snape marched to the front of the classroom then, robes flying about him dramatically. He gave a speech similar to the frightening one he'd given seven years ago, and set the students to work on their first brew. Hermione made rounds as ordered, stopping to help some students who looked to be on the verge of crying or punching something.

"Miss Granger! In my office!" bellowed Snape suddenly.

Once the door was firmly shut, he moved closer to her.

"What exactly are you doing?"

She blinked, taken aback.

"Helping, as you instructed."

"Spoon-feeding them is _not_ what I instructed," snapped Snape. "They are to read the recipe and follow both my and its directions exactly. They should have no problems if they do as such. They'll never learn should you continue to 'help' them."

Hermione's spine stiffened, her face burning with anger as she felt a surge of courage run through her.

"I don't appreciate the insinuation that I am doing their work for them, _sir_. That has never and will never constitute my educational ethics. I disagree with your idea that helping will hinder learning; why do you think most of our class struggled with Potions? It's because of your unwillingness to help!"

Snape's sallow face flushed, his eyes darkened with resentment, and for a moment she was sure he was going to pull out his wand and curse her. But for some reason, he restrained from doing it, probably because it would look bad on his record and keep him from becoming Deputy Headmaster, the filthy git. She felt triumphant, though; he couldn't serve her detention now.

"You may finish out the day," he finally said, almost spitting out the words. "Consider tomorrow a day off. You will return Thursday, and I will have no more of your defiance. If you are to be thought of as an adult, I suggest you act like one."

She nearly screamed at him to take lessons on acting like an adult, but bit so hard into her cheek that a coppery liquid coated her tongue.

Cleaning was tougher than she thought. She first removed everything she could with her wand, and scrubbed the rest. Most of the residue had to have been left by students for Merlin knew how many years before her. She couldn't have been more relieved when dinnertime arrived. Instead of sitting in the Great Hall, where she would have to be in Snape's company, she took her dinner outside, where she plopped down beneath a lakeside tree. Some younger students stood nearby, pointing excitedly at one of the giant squid's tentacles floating lazily near the surface.

"How was it?" said Ginny, suddenly beside Hermione.

"Oh, hi," said Hermione. "Sorry, I didn't realise—"

"It's fine. I could tell you're in your own head." Ginny grinned.

"It was dreadful, Ginny," said Hermione, and recounted the day. "So tomorrow I'll be in the library, I suppose."

"What a stretch for you," Ginny flopped onto her back. "It'll get better, though."

"Yeah, I hope." Hermione sighed. "I can't say I wasn't warned."

When Hermione returned to the dungeons, she was surprised to hear a familiar melody quietly floating out into the hallway to the separate quarters. She glanced stopped in front of Snape's open doorway and peered in to see him seated at a small desk, reading a textbook that looked to be falling apart. She couldn't see where the music was coming from, but it had to be from there somewhere.

"Mozart's Requiem?" she asked, though she already knew she was right.

"It's what I usually read to, Miss Granger," he arched his eyebrows. "Is it a problem?"

She figured it was a trick question and might earn her another "day off," as well as a "your opinion isn't what matters here," but she answered honestly anyway.

"No, it's one of my favourite pieces, actually. Goodnight."

She closed the door behind her, and could swear she'd seen the corner of his mouth twitch upwards again. What was _with _him? One minute he was the typical condescending, unfair Potions professor she was familiar with, and the next minute he was civil, slightly able to hold a conversation, and had excellent taste in music.

Severus Snape was an enigma, and Hermione made a promise to herself to figure him out by the end of the year. She would definitely have to start early.

-o-

Wednesday passed slowly, the hours lethargically ticking away as Hermione spent the day in the library. Usually she read quickly and was able to make it through more than one book, but Wednesday she barely made it through the one she'd picked out. Thursday was its converse, racing by. Hermione sneakily helped students by pointing to a certain ingredient in their textbooks and making a motion with her hand or finger. Snape didn't seem to notice, and she was sure if he had she would've received a talking-to as she had Tuesday, or gotten sent home, or whatever ridiculousness he was prepared to mete out.

How would she survive until June?

-o-

With a frustrated sigh, Severus slammed shut his book, pinching the bridge of his nose. Hermione Granger infuriated him, and he alternated between asking himself why he'd ever asked her. But she was inarguably the best candidate for the position, as much as he hated to admit it. As gifted as Draco Malfoy had been in Severus' class, he felt Hermione had more passion for the art of potion-making, whereas Draco merely used his talents to get through school. Draco had bigger things in store for him.

But for all her intelligence and talent, Hermione ran her mouth too much. Even in the seven years he'd known her, her respect towards him remained surface-level. Her constant quest to prove herself right led her to speak out of turn, and she always got that stupid look on her face like she always had something more to say, even when the conversation was considered to be over.

Severus got up and opened the window, letting the cool September night air clear his mind of the girl. It didn't work, though, and he thought of the short dialogue that had just occurred. He'd expected Hermione to just flounce into her room without offering him any kind of conversation—which was all the more fine by him—but she'd recognised the music, not at all surprising, and said it was her favourite. He wasn't sure why, but the fact that it was his favourite as well made his resentment towards her fade, if only marginally. She was still an insufferable smart-arse, though.

He had seen annoyance flash in her eyes when he told her of her duties the first day. But he would not start her at the level of assistant professor; she had to earn his respect and confidence in her abilities.

Severus Snape didn't trust anyone but himself, after all.

-o-

**A/N: Longer chapter, I know. I lost my original second chapter on my external hard-drive which I've still got to get data off of, so I just rewrote chapter two. It came out much, much better than the original. The part about the Requiem is random for sure, but I was listening last night and threw it in as a little "Snape isn't such a bastard, well sort of," bit. Okay, shut up Sorcha Rose, I know…reviews are always welcome! :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

As new students became accustomed to Professor Snape's teaching methods (or lack thereof), they required less help from Hermione. She still found herself immersed in unplanned tutoring sessions when a student would stumble across her in the library. As far as she knew, Snape wasn't aware of the interactions, but the first test still came out horribly for the first years, many of them making barely-passing marks. Hermione didn't doubt Professor Snape had put advanced material on the test, perhaps to see if she had helped them more than required. Still, he said nothing to her about the tests, merely remarking that they were "dreadful, as always" one night at dinner.

For Hermione's birthday, Harry and Ron surprised her by showing up and waiting outside of the Potions dungeons before she went to dinner. Upon Hermione emerging, Ron exclaimed, "She _is _alive!" before they whisked her off to the Three Broomsticks.

"So, you haven't murdered him yet?" asked Ron as they waited on shepherd's pie.

"No, although he hasn't really done much. That's the frustrating thing. I mean, if Trelawney can do it, anyone can be a professor, I guess, but wasn't that the whole point of this?"

"He's a git, what'd you expect?" said Harry.

"I guess _some _semblance of respect. Well, I'm really not that miserable, so it doesn't really matter. It's just annoying."

However, the feeling of being "really not that miserable" ended soon.

As September bled into October, she found herself with increasingly little to do as Snape handed out numerous detentions, and despite occasionally hanging out with Ginny, Hermione was growing restless and irritable. One night after dinner, she found herself finished with the thirteen books she'd last checked out from the library, and decided to do something about her unwarranted boredom. Snape sat hunched over, grading papers at the small desk in his open bedroom; as she stood in the doorway, Hermione felt as though she were seeing something she shouldn't, as if she were a kid snooping in her parents' bedroom -- not that she had ever done that.

She knocked lightly on the doorframe, and he looked up with a dramatic sigh.

"I assume this is about your current workload," he said by way of greeting.

She hesitated, surprised by his astuteness.

"Well, yes."

She stepped inside, and when she met no outward show of resistance, stood up straight, her shoulders back. She had to appear confident if she wanted more responsibility, although she really felt as though it weren't her job to have to ask him for work.

"My cleaning duties have disappeared because you've assigned so many detentions. Honestly, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to do something else with my time, like grade papers, for one."

He stared coolly, waiting on her to finish, but she only felt like he were silently mocking her. She felt like a first year again.

"Do you remember how strictly I grade? It hardly seems fair to switch grading styles at this point."

"Then why did you pick me? If you think I'm going to go easy on them all, why even _consider_ me?"

She stepped closer to his desk, her irritation eclipsing her propriety.

"You know how much I know about Potions, and you picked me for some reason. How am I going to get any training in if you refuse to let me help? If you don't have any faith in me --"

"Faith often denotes belief in the supernatural," he waved his hand dismissively. "I know your abilities."

Hermione was taken aback by his unwillingness to negotiate, although she knew she should have expected it. Still, she naively held onto the hope that he wouldn't be this infuriating with such a simple request. He should have just said yes or no and been done with it. She attempted to read his look; he seemed amused, but she believed Severus Snape to be incapable of such an emotion, unless it were at Harry's or Neville's expense. Was he enjoying this dragging on?

"With all due respect, I'm fairly certain sitting around isn't in the description for this position, and I see no reason I shouldn't earn some sort of training beyond what I already knew how to do."

Snape sighed again, a sound she was quickly tiring of.

"I'd hoped you wouldn't be as intolerable as you were in your school days. I see that was in vain after all."

Hermione's stomach knotted up, and she tried to control her temper, but couldn't keep the shake out of her voice.

"I only just left my 'school days' behind, and even if I hadn't, why did you ask me to do this if you despise me so much?"

"I dearly hope that is the last time I have to hear you asking me _why_ in regards to this. If you're miserable, please let me know so I can find a replacement. I'm sure Draco Malfoy would be thrilled for this opportunity."

"Or you could do the rational thing, and just let me _do _something!" Hermione blurted before she could stop herself.

"I will not be talked to in such a way," said Snape coldly, his spine stiffening. "It would be inconvenient to get a new apprentice, but I assure you, it is certainly not impossible. If you cannot stand another minute here, let me know, but I will not give you undue privileges just because of who you are. You will earn your duties as I have earned everything I have."

"Does that include your miserable demeanor?" snapped Hermione.

She immediately felt a twinge of guilt for speaking that way to a former professor, someone who was still her superior, but it didn't make it untrue.

"Get out of my room," Snape practically whispered, and as she marched away, his door slammed behind her.

That night was awful. Hermione floated in and out of dreams, unable to fall into a deep sleep even once. She stared at the ceiling for hours at a time, and even tried rereading a chapter of _Hogwarts, A History_, something that proved to be a fruitless attempt. She could practically feel the anger radiating from Snape's room, and if she weren't ordered to leave in the morning, she would be genuinely surprised.

However, Snape said nothing to her the next day, and she resumed her usual daily behaviour, wandering around during various class times and answering any questions quietly. Another week of silent non-interaction passed until the next Thursday, when, at the end of the first class of the day, Snape looked pointedly at Hermione.

"I believe nobody has yet earned detention," he said and returned to reading.

After her momentary surprise, she performed the necessary duties, looking up once to catch him staring at her before he dropped his gaze again. Upon completing what she could -- she made it her mission that night to get the most stubborn stains up before the end of the year even if it killed her -- she retreated to her room to find a snowy owl perched on her desk.

"Hello, Hedwig," she offered a treat she'd bought when out at Hogsmeade for such an occurrence, and unrolled the parchment that was attached to Hedwig's leg.

_Heard about your fight! Let's meet Friday for dinner at the usual. -H & R_

She smiled. Maybe things were looking up after all.

The following night found Hermione downing more butterbeer than she probably had in her years at Hogwarts. She felt positively giddy about having something to do again -- even cleaning was preferable to the spite-filled silence she and Snape had shared -- and about seeing Harry and Ron again.

"I can't believe he didn't fire you. Or whatever it would be, I guess," said Ron, who looked slightly amazed all night, assumingly at Hermione's confrontation.

"You and me both. Especially when he mentioned Malfoy."

"He'd probably like that," said Harry, screwing up his face.

"Oh Harry, Snape-Malfoy jokes are so old," Hermione said. "I don't think he could deal with Malfoy that long, honestly."

"But he hates _you_, and he's still dealing with you." Ron pointed out.

"Thanks, Ron."

After they parted from an evening with more laughter than Hermione had experienced in weeks, she found herself unable to walk well; apparently, she'd had enough butterbeer to make her a bit more than tipsy. Traversing the small hallway to her room, she had to steady herself against the wall more than once. Unfortunately, as Snape's room was across from her own, he witnessed one episode of her imbalance.

"Enjoyed the night out, I see," he remarked, and Hermione was not too inebriated to overlook the fact that this was the second sentence he'd spoken to her in eight days.

"I guess so, yes."

"I was going to give you the papers I received from the sixth-years today to grade, but I see you're in no state of mind to do so. I will give them to you tomorrow."

"Yeah, what'll be the excuse tomorrow?" she blurted, her filter on the fritz tonight.

"Miss Granger, I…" Snape began, but sighed and shut his eyes instead. "I think it best if you go on to bed. It's late."

She stared a moment before she decided to take his advice; she slept better than she had in weeks.

**-o-**

Severus strolled into Hermione's room after lunch the following day, dropping the stack of papers onto her desk over the book she was buried in. She looked up with surprise.

"I shall look them over after you're done to make sure you weren't too forgiving."

"Of course," said Hermione. "Thank you. And look, about last night --"

"Don't mention it. Your remark was most likely warranted. Try to have those done by tonight."

As he turned on his heel to leave, he heard Hermione unrolling the first sheet of parchment, and cocked a half-smile; two and a half hours later, Severus arched his eyebrows as he skimmed the fortieth, and final, essay Hermione had graded. He was surprisingly impressed with her efficiency at grading strictly; she had finished with the papers after only two hours, but clearly read every sentence. And Severus was nothing if not dedicated to making sure his apprentice didn't disappoint him.

"Keep this level of work up, and you'll teach a class soon," said Snape to Hermione as he passed her quarters on his way to the classroom. He could practically feel her shock.

The following Tuesday was Halloween, and Severus walked into the Great Hall to find Hermione decked out in a ridiculous amount of holiday-related regalia. Glowing jack-o'-lanterns dangled from her ears, and fake bats and spiders sat nestled in her bushy hair, which was pulled back from her face with an orange-and-purple headband decorated with a plastic skull. He wanted to be irritated with her sudden spirit for the holiday, but for some reason, he thought it endearing.

_Endearing? Really? _His subconscious reminded him of how utterly stupid that sounded, as if he were supposed to find someone as obnoxious as Hermione _endearing_, especially for such a stupid reason. When one was around someone else this much, the little things began to matter more, he supposed, and anything to make her more tolerable was welcome.

However, she left with a smile towards him before he could comment on her enthusiasm, and upon returning to the classroom, he found himself staring at the back of Hermione as she stood on a ladder deep in the storage closet, seemingly reorganizing ingredients. Two spiders flashed glowing red eyes in his direction.

She looked up when he cleared his throat, and smiled. A streak of dirt cut across her left cheek.

"I'm alphabetizing your shelves. It's a wonder you can find anything in here."

"Before class? And you would know. It's a wonder _you_ found what you were looking for." Snape retorted, remembering well the 'mysterious' disappearance of boomslang skin seven years ago.

Hermione only cocked a wry smile, saying nothing before she returned to her work. So she'd be more organized than he'd let himself become, and he supposed that was a positive trait. He'd begun to see a marginal improvement in grades and quality of students' work, no doubt because she was helping them outside of class, but he technically couldn't stop that. He hadn't given up on her just yet, despite that mouth of hers.

**-o-**

**A/N: As I said, I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint you all after the wait. I'm happy with gutsier Hermione, although there was going to be more to this chapter, more outward drama, but I began writing it and it would have made this twice as long. So I'm saving it for the next chapter -- which will NOT be 10 months from now, I promise! Think more…before the end of the month (fingers crossed!). Time goes a bit quickly here, but I don't want to drag things out. :)  
**

**Your reviews and/or alerts are all lovely and really keep me inspired to continue this story, so thank you! All my love to my sexily awesome readers!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

The first two weeks of November proved to be busy ones. Students had just taken tests, which Hermione had helped many, especially the fifth years, study for. To Hermione's delight, Severus divided the completed exams up for grading, giving Hermione the first through fourth years' tests. Hermione worked diligently, attempting to revise the students' answers more thoroughly, and as a result, parchments were strewn across the small side-desk she used a few feet from Snape's desk.

Severus' attitude hadn't changed much; he was still stiffly cordial, slightly friendlier than what she'd come to expect but not to the point of being noteworthy.

There had, however, been a strange interaction earlier in the week on a particularly gloomy day.

"Unable to enjoy time frolicking about with your friends?" Snape had said by way of greeting as he entered the classroom.

"I'll move, sorry," Hermione began gathering up the parchments, but Snape raised his hand.

"No need. I wasn't going to sit."

He walked over to the window enchanted to show the sky not visible from the dungeons, staring out at the cloud-heavy expanse. It was a solid blue-grey near the horizon, a sign of heavy storms to come, and as the thought flitted across Hermione's mind, a far-off rumble of thunder sounded.

"I always enjoy this sort of weather," she said suddenly, unsure as to what made her admit such a trivial thing, about which Severus certainly wouldn't care. But she continued anyway. "I always think best when it's like this."

Snape looked over at her, eyebrows slightly raised.

"There we agree, Miss Granger." He turned back to the window and sighed. "I apologise for addressing you so formally still. Old habits..."

Hermione was speechless. Severus Snape was apologising for something? Something trivial, no less? What had gotten into him? Maybe the weather had put him in a really good mood. Did this _count_ as a good mood, or just civility?

"It's fine," she stammered out. "I don't really notice anymore."

After a few moments of silence between them, Snape turned back around, facing her for the second time in such a short amount of time. She couldn't read the expression on his face, but something noticeably fell away, a barrier everyone knew was there but that nobody tried to break. He stared at her until she fidgeted, but before she could ask what was wrong, he spoke.

"I hope you are less miserable now than you were a few weeks ago."

She blinked. Perhaps someone had slipped something in his morning pumpkin juice, something to make him more personable today.

"Well, yes. You would have known by now otherwise." She laughed almost nervously.

"You're making a mess, you know," he said, tone suddenly sharp.

Whatever had changed in him, it distracted her so much that she didn't notice the ink blot slowly growing on a student's parchment, and in fact, she forgot that she'd ever been grading papers.

"Shit!" she muttered, looking up at him wide-eyed. "Er - sorry."

"So you're human after all," a tiny, albeit existent, smile tugged at a corner of his lips.

"You didn't notice while I was stumbling around drunkenly last month?"

"I've seen much worse."

And with that, he left, retreating to his bedroom, and she was left puzzled but pleased by the interaction. Her desire to know his thoughts, to find out what had changed in him just then, stretched out from her, reaching for his now-closed door. Though she would not get her answer for a while, the glimmer of something different in his eyes sparked a new determination to peel away the layers of Severus Snape, one by one, until she could look at him and know that it was truly him, the _real _Severus Snape, the Snape he had shown to no one in a long, long time. In that moment, Hermione wanted nothing more than this very thing, but then she heard music drifting from beneath his bedroom door and the moment passed.

-o-

Hermione found herself working alone out in the classroom the following Tuesday afternoon at her side-desk while Severus attended one of the monthly professors' meetings. She wasn't thinking about how much time had passed since Snape went to the meeting, but her work was interrupted when a student knocked at the door. She looked up to see a seventh-year Gryffindor, Alec Dawson, stepping inside. She recognized him but had never spoken to him before; he seemed to be quite arrogant, though she'd never heard him brag and she couldn't put her finger on why. _Just an irrational feeling_, she told herself as she greeted him, confusion colouring her words lightly.

"I was hoping I could talk to you," he said, pulling out a chair and setting it next to Hermione behind the desk.

She felt uncomfortable at the bold move, but he was far enough away that she didn't feel exactly threatened just yet.

"What is it? Professor Snape has the seventh-year papers."

"Well, it's not just the test. Actually, it sort of deals with that." He leaned in a bit; she frowned at his blatant contradiction. "I'm not doing too well in here in any aspect. I just wondered if you could help me out. Maybe tutoring, although I'm not sure I could get something this late in the game, y'know?"

She narrowed her eyes.

"You still have the rest of this term and the spring term to pull up your grade," she retorted. "I don't mind tutoring you, but you have to be willing to put in the work outside of class."

"Well, I'm really terrible at Potions, I think beyond learning it," he leaned so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. She swallowed hard; her heart rate rose and her face felt hot. You're probably overreacting, she told herself stubbornly and tried to steady her breathing.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to change your grade."

"Look, if you do it last-minute he won't notice and you'll still get the job if that's what you're worried about," he said, glancing toward the empty doorway.

Her spine stiffened.

"And it's against every rule ever regarding education," she said, voice rising steadily. "If you really want to improve, you'll do it the way truly successful students do, and work at it. I will help you, but I will not give you a different grade. You'll find most employers would rather have an honest -"

Without warning, he laid his hand on her knee and made to move it upwards, but her reflexes kicked in and she stood so fast her chair toppled backwards with a great crash. She regretted leaving her wand on her bedside table earlier, but before she had a chance to think about it further, a sharp voice called out.

"Miss Granger! I will speak to Mr. Dawson. Leave us."

Snape stood in the doorway, anger etched on his face and swirling around him like a sparking cloud. Hermione shakily sighed before hurrying from the room wordlessly. She considered taking a walk, but without her wand and with such shaky nerves, she wasn't ready to talk to anybody else about anything as her mind tried to process what just happened. Instead, she waited around a corner and in an alcove, leaning against the wall and trying to remember how to breathe.

She should have known somebody would eventually try such a thing, especially with her having just left Hogwarts, and being apprentice to one of the most difficult professors, but it still shook her. Most of her unease came from being completely defenceless; while she could have Summoned her wand without the actual wand, she had been too taken aback to think properly, and this itself scared her. They were over the threat of Voldemort, and she was certainly a capable witch. It should have been second nature to her.

Footsteps brought her out of her head, and Dawson passed without even noticing her in the alcove. She leaned out slightly to watch him as he turned the corner, and as she turned to go back to the room she bumped into Snape himself. His hand caught her by the elbow and she became acutely aware of the way her other arm was folded against his stomach and pressed between them, of his breath against her hair.

"How long were you there?" she said, and the moment was gone; he'd drawn back and they were walking back to the set of rooms.

"I came in as you were talking about successful students, just before he touched you. I've assigned him indefinite detention, and I shall speak with Minerva about it."

"No," said Hermione, and they stopped just short of their desks. Snape eyed her curiously. "I don't think he'll be a problem again. You can decide how long he should serve detention and we'll leave it at that. I don't want anyone thinking I can't handle this."

"Very well."

"Thank you, Severus," she said, taking note of how he reacted when his name fell from her lips; his eyes darkened and that strange Snape-barrier fell away again.

But again he allowed for little time for her to examine him further, as he nodded curtly and disappeared down the hallway to his bedroom.

Hermione sat in the chair she assumed Snape had placed back upright at the desk, and tried to pick up where she'd left off on papers. She couldn't concentrate, but her mind wasn't on what had just happened, either; instead, it was a jumbled mass of thoughts that kept sliding by like pictures in a viewfinder toy. She walked to her room and flopped back onto her bed, shutting her eyes as she tried to pinpoint where she wanted to turn her focus.

Dawson's actions had resurrected a question that had floated in Hermione's head the first week of her apprenticeship but had since been forgotten in the midst of day-to-day life, even the week of her 'probation.' McGonagall had told the students to treat Hermione with the same respect afforded their professors, and had even told her to call the professors themselves by their first names. But Hermione was only a year out of school, still a teenager at nineteen. She was still around half the age of the younger professors like Snape or, if he were still a teacher, Lupin. Next year would be different. She would turn twenty, she would have the title of professor, and Snape would be Deputy Headmaster. Few students she tutored called her 'Miss Granger' – it was almost always Hermione, with the exception of a shy girl in Ravenclaw.

What did Snape consider her? He still addressed her as though she were still a student, with a few slips of 'Hermione.' She'd always been flooded with a warm feeling inside her stomach when he said her first name, but she believed only from the newness of it, the foreign feeling of having a professor who had once loathed her calling her by her first name. But he had not been condescending as he had the first few months this term and seemed to respect her more, whether because of her outspoken unhappiness and the period of not speaking, or because she actually was coming into her own and progressing not only as an apprentice but as an adult, she didn't know.

The one thing she did know is that she appreciated the whispers of mutual respect that tenuously ran between them, and this thought comforted her, lulling her into an unexpected and unprepared-for sleep, on top of the made bed and still fully clothed.

-o-

One Friday two weeks after the incident with Alec Dawson, just as November was fading into December, found Hermione and Snape in a scene that seemed like a less miserable flashback to two months ago: Hermione voluntarily scrubbing counters and putting leftover ingredients in piles to replace on the shelves later, while Snape graded papers at his desk.

Now, Hermione found the atmosphere almost relaxing; while she enjoyed grading essays and tests, she enjoyed the physical work when she wasn't running on resentment. It made her feel useful in a different way, and it certainly helped that she and Snape were not as hostile toward one another and the atmosphere less tense.

Perhaps the almost mindless task kept her mind clear or the feeling of peace she had that prompted her to speak, but whatever it was, she did so candidly and suddenly.

"I'm glad I stayed."

She kept working until she realized Snape was staring at her. She stopped and looked up; as usual, she couldn't read his expression.

"Well, I'm certainly pleased to hear that."

A long pause passed before he began writing again.

"I'm glad you stayed too." He said quietly and without looking at her, and if Hermione hadn't seen his lips move, she wouldn't have believed he said it.

She couldn't help the smile that worked its way onto her face, and resumed her cleaning. So engrossed was she in her work and thoughts that she didn't notice how much time passed until the sound of Severus' chair scraping against the floor cut through her daze.

"I believe the tables are cleaner than they've been in decades, and it's time for dinner. You need to take a break."

"That sounds good."

She went to wash up, and didn't realize she expressed her surprise to see Snape still standing in the classroom upon her return.

"Don't look so shocked. I might as well serve as company on the way to the Hall."

"Oh, no, of course it's welcomed," she said, warmth spreading over her cheeks.

It was nothing in regards to any feelings for Snape beyond surprise at his gesture, but rather the uncharacteristic kindness - or at least thoughtfulness - of the gesture. Hermione knew he was human like the rest of them, but to actually show it caught her off-guard, especially considering the statement he'd made earlier.

Hermione began thinking on the way to the Great Hall, about how her life had changed in the last six months. A Friday night would normally have found her reading, doing homework, both, or - a rarer event - out at Hogsmeade with Harry and Ron. She never exactly had a booming social life, but she never expected to spend an evening voluntarily scrubbing a room shared with one of the most intimidating professors at Hogwarts, who was even acting pleasantly towards her.

As they reached the entrance hall, she spoke.

"I'm sorry I wasn't a good conversationalist on the way. I got to thinking."

"That surprises me entirely," he said, a corner of his mouth twitching almost undetectably. "I was doing some thinking of my own, so no need to worry. The company was enough."

Hermione smiled, and as they entered the Great Hall she didn't miss a few students looking curiously at the two walking in together, but her expression remained unchanged. It certainly surprised her too.

"So tell us," demanded Ron between gulps of butterbeer the following night, "is it still dreadful? Any more epic arguments? Harry and I have been waiting."

"No, quite the opposite. He told me last night he's glad I stayed after I said something similar. He's been nice…well, to me at least. The students probably have a different opinion."

Harry's eyebrows shot up.

"You don't think he's trying to take advantage of you, do you?" he asked almost angrily.

"Absolutely not. I can tell he's been sincere when he says things like that. He abuses his power sometimes -"

"Oh, yeah, sometimes," Ron interjected.

"- but I don't think he'd do something like that," continued Hermione with a roll of her eyes.

"Becoming an expert, then?"

Hermione couldn't tell if Harry was joking, but she noticed his teasing smile didn't quite reach his eyes. She hadn't told them about Dawson, and if it never came up, that would be fine. They didn't need to worry more about her than they already did with her being in Snape's presence all the time.

"I didn't say that. But you don't need to be an expert to see that Snape wouldn't try to advance his position or assert his authority by taking a risk like that, at least not when I would tell somebody, and he knows it. You two know that."

"Wow, why don't you just shag the guy?" said Ron, looking slightly repulsed even as he said it.

Hermione scoffed.

"That's mature of you, Ron. It's called respect, you know. I think I've earned his, and I return the sentiment. Maybe you should look into it."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was time to get self-righteous," said Ron, his voice rising. Harry looked between the two as he always did, saying nothing as he always did.

"It's being an adult!" Hermione shouted, finally standing up and throwing some Galleons on the table for the drinks she'd had. "I'll talk to you when you've grown up. Goodbye, Harry."

She stormed out of the Three Broomsticks, freshly-fallen snow crunching under her feet as she stomped back to Hogwarts. Would she, Harry and Ron really let something like this come between them? She knew they'd never understand how things had progressed because they hadn't been there, but she agreed to the apprenticeship thinking nothing would change between them.

She watched her breath-clouds hang in the air with each exhale, and with each step, she hoped December would bring answers.

-o-

**A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, even though it sat, beta'd, in My Documents for far too long. I know this chapter is longer than the others, but there was no 'easy' place for me to divide it, so you get a bonus for being so patient with me!**

**As always, feel free to drop a note in the review box!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Sometimes Hermione had dreams about the war. It made sense; it had ended a few months into their seventh year and had been something that certainly haunted all of them. But more often than anything else she dreamed of, she dreamed about the night at the Ministry of Magic. The race through the seemingly never-ending aisles of shelves filled with prophecy balls, the flashes of light from countless wands during the duels, and most vividly in her mind, the purple-flame spell that the Death Eater Dolohov hit her with, the one which had incapacitated her for weeks.

Sometimes she dreamed of the actual duel and the feeling of the spell as it hit her and the excruciating pain she felt for those long weeks; sometimes the dreams played out the "what if"—how things might have been different had she not Silenced Dolohov beforehand. If she'd died instead of lived, or if she'd had to recover for months instead of weeks. Time seemed to stretch forever in those dreams, seemingly going for the duration of time which they expressed—months, years, certainly far more than any six-to-eight hours of sleep Hermione experienced. And each time, she awoke feeling exhausted and covered in a thin layer of sweat.

It had been a while since Hermione had had any of these dreams, and when she did, the time made sense, as exams were approaching. She'd gotten to teach classes and so her stress level rose and allowed dreams to slip through her mind's sieve.

And so in the middle of December, she dreamed of the battle at the Ministry of Magic, and though she couldn't remember if she'd actually screamed or not, she'd screamed in the dream and she feared in real life, as she'd awoken to feel the end of a yell leaving her throat, the sound of the dream and possible sound of real life running together in her mind fuzzy with semi-consciousness. She had the telltale sweat attaching her clothes to her skin and her hair to her neck, and untangled herself from the sheets to stumble to the bathroom. She grabbed an elastic and twisted her hair up off her neck, securing it in a messy bun, and twisted open the cold tap, letting the water run to its coldest for a few minutes before reaching down to splash her face and the back of her neck.

Over the sound of the running water she didn't hear the knock on her bedroom door or it opening, but only looked up when she heard Severus' voice unexpectedly behind her.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, shutting off the water and groping for a towel. She eyed him in the mirror as she dabbed at her face, purposefully leaving some of the dampness on her skin.

"I came to make sure you were okay," he said, looking somewhere between confused and worried.

Snape..._worried_? About her?

"Did I actually make noise? I don't think I do usually, I mean, my roommates have never said anything."

"Yes, you yelled," said Snape without malice or resentment in his voice. "You were distressed. Is something going on?"

"I have dreams about the war, but it's nothing I haven't had before." She hung her towel back on the rail and turned to face him, leaning back against the sink counter. "I'm sorry to wake you. Next time I'll put a Silencing Charm on my room."

"No need," he said then softly added, "I'm just relieved you're fine."

Hermione's cheeks flushed, and it was only then she realized she was in only her pyjamas—a singlet and thin shorts—while Snape was in a long and tightly-wrapped dressing gown. It all seemed inappropriate, the role of teacher and student still so ingrained in her mind.

"Would you like tea? Since we're up," he offered suddenly, and it took her a second to let his words sink in.

First he was concerned, and now he was offering tea? Surely this was still part of her dream. But the coldness of the water had felt so _real_.

"I—sure," she said, deciding to take full advantage of the kindness which pervaded his personality lately.

Minutes later they sat in his bedroom—Hermione in an armchair by his window, Snape at his desk, so it wasn't quite strange enough for her to be uncomfortable—waiting for their tea to cool a bit, both silent.

"Sometimes the place I got hit hurts me," she finally said. Snape arched his eyebrows at her. "I was hit by Dolohov, the spell—"

"I know the one. Purple?"

She nodded. "I had to take ten potions a day for weeks. And even though I was assured I'm fine, sometimes it twinges, kind of. I don't really know how to describe it. Of course, Harry's was worse, but it's kind of like a lesser version of what he felt in his scar sometimes."

"I'm not surprised," said Snape. "Dark magic has lasting effects, even in subtle ways. It can be almost a constant reminder of what has happened, which I suppose is another reason it's considered 'Dark' magic. Sometimes the psychological wounds are worse than the physical ones."

She stared at him in near-disbelief. Something about him was so human in this moment, almost like the short Requiem conversation, that she found herself admiring him. Not in a mentor-mentee way, but in a fellow human-being way, in the way that he made himself more approachable sometimes in a way Harry and Ron—and perhaps all his other students—would never understand. Hermione reminded herself she'd never experienced this as a student herself, and knew she was witnessing a once in a lifetime 'something' with Snape.

"Is something wrong?"

"No," she lowered her gaze and took a sip of tea. "Just thinking about what you've said."

"Did it leave a scar?" he asked suddenly. "I only ask because I've seen various effects. Those who live through the curse either have a scar or none at all."

She didn't answer. After a moment, she stood. She wasn't sure what made her do it, but in response to his question, she padded over to him and without saying anything, lifted her shirt enough to show the mark beneath her heart and slightly to the right. A thin, silvery zigzag mark ran along her next-to-last rib, barely visible but sometimes brighter than at other times. Her theory was if it ached it was brighter than when it did nothing, and of course, this was one of those times. The flickering candlelight fell on it, illuminating it further.

She watched as his eyes traced it and his hand almost involuntarily rose just a bit from the table before he lowered it again, as if he'd been about to touch it but stopped himself. She shivered as she thought of his fingers brushing against her skin and shook herself. What a ridiculous thing to think about. She pulled the hem of her shirt back down and stepped back.

"It's nothing close to what you've seen before, I'm sure."

He looked up at her face.

"It's there," he said softly. "It's a visible reminder."

"Yes," she said. "It used to make me self-conscious, as if anybody ever saw it but me—until now, of course—but now I've come to accept it. It's part of me now, it shows what I've been through, and it'll make a great story for my kids one day."

"Why did you show me?"

"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "I just felt like it."

"You have another scar," he said, his eyes falling to the silvery-pinkish mark on the front of her shoulder, just beneath her right collarbone.

"I have more than those," she smiled. "I got that in the last battle. It was a spell that missed my heart by a few inches. It went deep and took a while to heal, but wasn't as serious as Dolohov's. I'm sure you have more than I do, though."

"Yes." It was the only thing he said in response.

She remained standing in front of him a few more minutes for no real reason until he moved his hand forward again, almost reaching out. But she turned and walked back to the chair, drinking the rest of her tea and then placing the teacup on his desk, doing all of this very quickly.

"I should get back to sleep," she said, her cheeks warm. "Thank you for the tea."

Before he could reply, she left, and shook as she shut her door and sat down on the bed. She could almost feel the ghost of what she imagined his fingertips on her skin would be like and shut her eyes, breathing in deeply and exhaling slowly. It was just the fringes of semi-consciousness fading from her mind, creeping away like mist crawling back into hiding as day approached, and tomorrow she would berate herself for such foolish and immature thoughts. It was all just being removed from her age group outside of class and some sort of loneliness that came from being without her friends for this long. She was sure of it. Maybe some of it was a reaction to the situation with Dawson a month before and how Snape had defended her.

She hadn't talked to Harry or Ron since the small argument in the Three Broomsticks, and she knew if she even mentioned what had happened whenever they saw each other again, they would react in a ridiculous way—at least Ron probably would, while Harry would stare in silent judgement. There was nothing else for it; she would never tell them or anyone, and let the moment fade in time and memory. For some reason, that seemed easier said than done, but Hermione Granger was never one to back down from a challenge.

-o-

Severus put his face against his palms, pressing them against his forehead in an attempt to shove the thoughts swirling in his mind to the deeper recesses of it. They weren't explicit, but he was pretty sure wondering how smooth the scar would be against her skin was not something a teacher should be having about his apprentice.

He hadn't had much of his tea and he was sure by now it was cold, and with that thought, his mind jumped to how Hermione's hair tied back made her look older in a pleasant, sort of subtle way; it showed more of her face, more of her eyes, and he wondered why she didn't wear it back more often. Of course, she was still pretty with it down, but he was surprised at the maturity her swept-back hair added to her.

He mentally kicked himself. What was he _thinking_? Why was he thinking about such things at three in the morning? Tomorrow was Monday; they had classes starting at nine, and he should be asleep. But, surprising even to him, he didn't blame Hermione for his being awake, except for the fact that she'd lifted her shirt enough to show more skin than he'd even thought about when it came to her. But the rest was his fault, for dwelling on the image after she'd left in a hurry, for his curiosity.

He finally forced himself to fall into an uneasy sleep around four-thirty, and awoke more tired than he had been in a long time.

As if Hermione had read his thoughts that early morning, he walked into the Great Hall at breakfast to find her with her hair back in a long braid. Her smile was a tired one, but sincere, and he caught the corners of his mouth twitching up in the slightest of smiles back at her, quickly replaced again by a straight line.

"Were you able to sleep soon after you left?" he asked as he sat next to her.

"Yes," he sensed a lie, "and you?"

"Yes," he lied back.

He could tell from the look in her eyes she knew he hadn't told the truth, but that she didn't mind as long as they both knew they were lying. It was a shared unspoken truth and that was okay. How many of those did they have? How many unspoken truths did she have on her own, and how many did she share with him? Had he been too self-absorbed to notice?

He shook himself free of these thoughts and poured pumpkin juice as a distraction, engaging himself in small talk with McGonagall. He knew she'd overheard his and Hermione's brief exchange but didn't inquire as to the meaning behind his words and for that he was appreciative. He knew she'd be able to see through his facade and perhaps the thoughts and feelings he denied he had but knew rationally he probably did. Thankfully, she stayed on the topic of lesson plans she was deciding upon revising, and he offered input when desired.

It wasn't until later that Severus realized he'd been able to enter Hermione's room without waiting on unlocking charms.

-o-

**A/N: Hello, all! Enjoy some UST. This was another case of sitting, beta'd, in my documents for months and me just getting around to editing. Hopefully next time I'll be more on the ball! To Helen – all my thanks and love, not just for being a wonderful friend, but for betaing, always. 3**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Hermione found it hard to concentrate while she graded exams with Snape the week after her dream. The students going home left the day before Snape had handed her a stack of parchments, 'suggesting' she grade them sooner rather than later so she could fully enjoy Christmas break. So she worked with him in the office early in the week, the tick-tick-tick of the clock's pendulum and the scratches of quills on parchment the only sounds between them.

She set aside a now-graded exam and picked another off the unfinished stack. She glanced at Snape's hands, his left hand open as he held down the parchment end from curling. She did something she shouldn't have; she thought of him touching her scar from Dolohov's spell, wondered how it would feel to have his cold fingers glide across her skin—

Her cheeks grew warm and she quickly turned her gaze back to the parchment in front of her but the words swam around incomprehensibly. Her thoughts weighed heavy on her mind; she wondered if he'd ever touched a woman before—or was she still a girl?—and tried to picture him taking someone back to his bedroom...but she couldn't. He probably never did; he was probably too involved with schoolwork or Death Eater and espionage goings-on.

"Hermione," his voice snapped her out of her musings and she looked up. "You're making a mess."

She looked down at the ink slowly spreading from the tip of her quill pressed onto the parchment, blooming out into an ugly flower shape. She cursed, stuck the quill in her inkwell and began looking around for something to blot the ink with, but Snape set down his own quill, pulled out his wand and muttered a spell, all the while arching an eyebrow at her in typical Snape fashion.

"That was irresponsible," she said, staring down at the disappearing spot. "I'm sorry."

"Why don't you take a break for a bit? You're not on a set schedule."

Initially she didn't feel up to a walk, but the longer she stared at the words below the antsier she got. She finally decided to take one outside and unnecessarily let him know before leaving. He merely raised his eyebrows and gave a single nod.

She pushed back from the desk to stand, but didn't leave. Her eyes were back on his hands, and his gaze was on her. She heard the blood rushing in her ears, felt her heart drumming against her ribs and the thread of tension coiling tightly in the pit of her stomach, and before she could change her mind, she lifted her shirt halfway and grabbed his hand, pressing it against her scar.

His skin was cool at first as she imagined, but quickly warmed up against hers; a shiver of satisfaction ran up her spine when she finally looked at his face and saw that his mouth had fallen open a little. His gaze shifted to his hand—or her skin, she couldn't tell which—and she let go. He turned in his chair to face her and placed his other hand on the small of her back, pulling her closer.

She swallowed hard as he drew his thumb over her scar then dragged his fingertips down over it, a small breathy giggle escaping her as it tickled. He looked up at her face, his eyes dark and clouded with something she couldn't define.

"Is it any different from yours?" she finally asked.

"A little." He moved his thumb to look at it again. "Yes, the ridges around the edges especially."

She wasn't quite sure how to feel about his words, about the specificity of them, of his observations.

"Have you ever touched anyone like this?" she asked, unsure as to why she was being so forthright, even though her voice was just slightly trembling; it was as though she were being controlled by another Hermione. She was a Gryffindor, but she didn't think she was _this _gutsy, especially when it came to the opposite sex. And _especially _when it came to a former professor—a professor who was still in a position of power, nonetheless.

He sighed. "It's been a long time."

Without warning he straightened, pulled away his hand, and tugged her shirt down. "You ought to go on your walk."

Heat flooded her cheeks; she felt insulted by his dismissal, but left anyway. How could he be so honest—that part of himself few had ever seen—one minute, and cold, the way she knew him in school the next?

It was a question which often plagued her, but she knew she might never get an answer, and that they'd just continue on in this constant state of going back and forth until the apprenticeship would end, he'd be promoted and they'd never really speak past professional small talk again.

It was colder outside than she'd anticipated but she didn't want to return to the classroom or even her bedroom for a while. She decided a walk up to and back from Gryffindor Tower would waste enough time, but as she walked back into the entrance hall she was met with Snape himself. She intended to walk past, but he grabbed her arm.

"I shouldn't have been so short with you."

"I don't want to do this all the time—you going back and forth between being pleasant and being distant," she said with renewed bravery. She noticed his fingers were still curled around her arm, the pressure almost intensified.

"I don't care for it either. I'm just not used to this. It's been a long time."

"I know it's been a long time, and I can tell you were hurt by someone," she grabbed his hand from her arm but held onto it, "but those experiences are part of you, and even though I feel like you've handled some things—well, many things—poorly, I still think there's a part of you that wants to trust someone again."

He held her gaze, his unreadable—as usual.

"Sometimes I think I overreact, too. I'm not saying you're the only one at fault. But I think you should start with realising you deserve more."

He let go of her hand.

"I don't deserve what I want."

"I think that's bollocks."

He arched his eyebrows and cocked a half smile.

"That's a start," she said, smiled, and pulled away. "Now, I'm going to finish my walk. Dinner when I get back?"

"Sure." He didn't bother to mention they'd be at dinner together regardless, with all the other teachers, but instead enjoyed the familiarity.

-o-

As he watched her walk away, he mentally replayed the words he'd just said: "I don't deserve what I want." But what _did _he want?

_You know the answer to that, _his mind whispered.

"I want to mean something to someone," his voice was soft, barely audible. "This is probably the last chance I have."

"Severus?"

"Minerva." He turned and nodded once at the Headmistress, and wondered how long she'd been standing there at the bottom of the main staircase.

"Are you looking for someone?"

"Ah—no. I was just seeing Miss Granger off—that is, we were continuing a conversation and she had to leave."

McGonagall's mouth twitched.

"I see. I'm relieved to note you and Miss Granger are on good terms. I have to admit I was worried about the combination of you two."

"You won't be surprised to know there were times I thought she would leave, but it seems to have worked out."

She nodded.

"She's more mature than her peers, certainly, though her passion in the heat of an argument or conflict can sometimes blur that objectivity. I'd hoped if arguments arose—and I knew they surely would—that you two would think through them individually and reach a mutual agreement aloud."

"That's usually what happens."

"I know how to read people, Severus. And that's not a divinatory thing, so don't tell Sibyll I said that." She smiled—slightly, but still a smile, especially for her. "A professor like her is needed, a fresh face among the regulars, the ones not going anywhere. And _not _in Defence Against the Dark Arts again—that's too much change.

"Well," she straightened her robes, "I must be going now. I'll see you two at dinner." She began to leave but stopped and turned before ascending the stairs. "Oh, and Severus...it's okay for someone to mean something to _you_."

Before he could respond she'd gone ahead. He didn't feel quite like going to the dungeons, so he took his own advice, and went for a walk. He opted for the cold outside, and took his time circling the lake, mulling over the last two conversations he'd had. While Hermione had shown her skin and scars again, he had shown his human side again, though she'd somewhat forced his hand—in both ways.

"_Have you ever touched anyone like this?"_ she'd asked, but it didn't really even matter; it was the first time in decades he'd touched someone 'like that', and it had awakened some kind of strange honesty within him, so much that he even _admitted_ he didn't like the constant back-and-forth they were undergoing. He'd overstepped so many boundaries—not just professional boundaries, but also the boundaries he'd set for himself, even though he'd _never _envisioned these conversations and events happening—that he felt it somewhat useless to keep up the coldness she'd experienced all her years at Hogwarts, even though much of that had already thawed.

He decided he didn't want the impression he left on Hermione Granger to be one of a man who constantly hurt and belittled her—a student with a passion for learning like he hadn't seen in years—in and out of the classroom, and even if he couldn't take back his actions and words, he could do better with the time that was to come.

He scoffed. What had _happened_ to him? Was Hermione Granger really making him soft, or was this what age would do to a person? Would she help him move on from his own demons?

-o-

Hermione tried to enjoy the pleasant atmosphere of dinner but she couldn't concentrate on much else than what she'd thought of on her walk up to Gryffindor Tower. Her "break" from Ron and Harry was weighing on her chest, the way they'd parted leaving a bitter taste on her tongue, and she needed to try and remedy their friendship through the source of the issue—Snape himself.

Her "I know you're lonely" speech hit a chord inside her too, and she knew she had to talk to them. So she sent an owl after dinner and asked them to meet her at the Three Broomsticks the next evening. Later she received two owls back, both confirming they would, and her face lit up with a smile, evoking the curiosity of Snape as they sat grading exams again.

"I'm meeting Harry and Ron tomorrow," she explained though he didn't ask. "We have things to sort out between us, and I think I've even missed them."

"That sounds good. I'm sure they'll want to stop by." He smirked.

"Oh, yes, especially Ron. I'm sure you'd love to see your most prized students."

When 'tomorrow' finally arrived, Hermione set out for Hogsmeade, bundled up maybe with too many layers to battle the recent heavy snowstorm replete with strong winds. Her hair was quite the sight as she caught her reflection in a window but she walked inside the Three Broomsticks before trying to pat it down. Harry and Ron were already near the back at a table and waved her over; Rosmerta hovered at the table to get Hermione's order of a butterbeer.

"So, how's it going?" Ron asked.

Hermione didn't know whether to tread lightly or not so she answered honestly and said, "Great. I feel like we've made a lot of progress."

"Well, it's been a long time since we've seen each other," said Harry, "so I would hope that'd be the case."

"We got you something," Ron blurted somewhat suddenly, and Harry shot him a look. It was obviously intended to be given near the end of the night, but Hermione giggled.

Harry pulled out a slightly-heavy package, and Hermione could tell it was a photo frame when she took it.

"Do you want me to wait to open it on Christmas?"

"No," the boys replied in unison.

She smiled and tore open the paper, and gasped. It was a dual photo frame and in the first pane, a picture of Harry, Hermione, and Ron from the end of their first year; in the second pane, a photo with them in the same positions but six years later and at the end of the last battle, still dirty and clothes torn and their expressions tired but relieved. Hermione felt hot tears sting her eyes and she blinked to try to push them away but it only made them fall and then it was a matter of seconds before her shoulders shook with crying.

"Are you sad?"

"We're sorry!" said the boys hurriedly and she felt hands on her back and had vaguely heard the scraping of a chair and she shook her head.

"No, I love it. It's wonderful. I'm just surprised...and happy. I don't want to let this get between us again." She sniffled and looked at them.

"We don't either, that's why we got it!" said Ron with his usual crooked smile. "The photo frame was actually Mum's idea but we loved it."

She laughed and they toasted with their drinks and ordered more and caught up with each other's lives from the last few months and Hermione almost didn't want to return to the castle. When she did, the first order of action was to place the picture frame on her bedside table, even before wishing Severus a goodnight.

Between yesterday and tonight's events, maybe—just maybe—everything would work out. Things were finally looking up, not just for Hermione, but for everyone. If it could continue for six more months, she might get through it and become a professor, and she honestly couldn't have asked for a better feeling.

She just hoped it would last.

(A/N: Wow, sorry, guys! I didn't drop off the face of the planet, I just graduated college and then real life got in the way and finally I just sat down and did this. Thanks for sticking with me, if you have! I hope to have the next chapter up in time for Christmas, since it will be, well, Christmas-y.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Hermione hated Christmas shopping.

No, that wasn't true; she liked it when she got presents for her parents or for Harry or Ron or even Ginny. They were easy to shop for; a broomstick polishing kit here, Chudley Cannons shirt there—no big deal. But as she took in the wares of and Dogweed and Deathcap, and Potage's Cauldron Shop in Hogsmeade, and even the cauldron shop and the Apothecary in Diagon Alley, none of them called out to her. She declared it a lost cause to find a present for Severus Snape.

When she returned to the castle after her decidedly last trip out on her last disappointing Saturday, she didn't go immediately to the dungeons, but instead to the only person who might have any sort of clue as to a gift for Snape: Professor McGonagall. It wasn't so much that Hermione thought they were such great friends that she would know, but it was a visit more to bounce ideas off of the Transfiguration teacher—and perhaps, with luck, come to some sort of revelation. She knocked, heard McGonagall call "the door's open" and when she stepped in, saw the surprise on the older woman's face.

"Hermione," she stood up and gave a rare smile (even if smiles were less rare when one was no longer a student), "it's good to see you."

"I'm down in the dungeons so much except for meals," said Hermione with a laugh. "It seems like I rarely see the outside world."

"I'd say it's good you're not sick of the dungeons yet, considering that's where you'll be during most of your days in the future."

"It's good mostly because Professo—Severus and I haven't killed each other yet."

"Yes, I'd say that's wonderful."

McGonagall transfigured a small table next to her desk into a chair and Hermione sat. She tried to keep her fidgeting down, but watched McGonagall's eyes wander to her restless hands in her lap, and sighed.

"What's on your mind, Hermione?"

"Well...I've been Christmas shopping, and I've gotten almost everyone something, but I'm having trouble with a gift and I was wondering if maybe you could help me with some ideas."

It all rushed out in a single breath, and Hermione wasn't sure it was even comprehensible, but McGonagall sat back in her chair, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Is this for Severus?"

"Yes." Hermione sighed yet again, perpetuating a vicious cycle of sighs. "I went to the Diagon Alley _and _Hogsmeade potions-related shops and I just couldn't find anything he wouldn't already have or that would mean something to him. I just haven't gotten _that _close to him to know something he would like as a present, really, and I'm sure nothing's even expected of me, but...well, I just want to, I guess."

Admitting she wanted to buy him a present was more embarrassing than it even being discussed, but McGonagall made no comment about Hermione's wishes or feelings.

"And I thought you might know of some ideas because, well, you've known him a lot longer than I have. And even though I've _known _him for a long time, he's never really opened up to me about this sort of thing. Not that he's probably opened up to anyone." Hermione knew she was babbling and forced her mouth shut, pursing her lips together.

"As always, your logic is sound, Hermione," McGonagall pulled out a small piece of parchment and wrote down a list of shops in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and crossed out the ones Hermione had visited. "I think if we just look at a list of shops we can figure something out."

Which is all how, four hours later, Hermione finally left a small hole-in-the-wall shop in Diagon Alley (last trip, indeed) that sold little odds-and-ends and, most importantly, rarities. It was there she'd found one of the last copies in known existence of a book that was considered by many to be the definitive work of modern Potions-making, written by a man named Helius Avery, who happened to still be alive at the ripe old age of one-hundred-and-eighty-two.

Three days later she received the book back from him in plain brown wrapping paper, and opened it up to the first page to see a shaky yet curly signature in dark red ink. She thanked McGonagall at that night's dinner without further detail, earning a brief but nonetheless look of curiosity flashed their way from Snape himself; that night she mailed out a thank-you note.

When Christmas arrived, she accidentally overslept as she'd been up late the night before and trekked to the kitchen wearing only a dressing gown drawn tightly over her pyjamas, and slippers, to grab a late breakfast; afterward she returned to an empty classroom grabbed the book from her room before walking to his open bedroom. He sat at his desk, already dressed, reading the morning's copy of the _Daily Prophet_, but looked up when she cleared her throat.

"Hermione." He sounded ever-so-slightly surprised but masked the emotion. _Not enough_, she thought happily. "Good morning."

"Good morning. Happy Christmas, too," she said, stepping in. She felt a bit strange to enter without his express permission but he seemed to have no qualms about it so she, with her hands still behind her back, walked up to his desk bravely.

"Of course. You as well."

"Here." She thrust the wrapped book out at him, feeling her cheeks flush but holding his gaze.

He glanced down and took it, smirking. "Thank you for the appropriate wrappings." She had taken special care to get the right shade of green for the paper and a silver bow. "I also got you something."

He brought out a small package from behind his desk and handed it to her.

The box was a bit weighty but not necessarily heavy, and larger than the book she'd gotten him, and she suddenly felt self-conscious about her gift to him. He was looking at her expectantly, though, so she pushed aside her thoughts and unwrapped the gift. When she finally opened the box, she found a dozen glass bottles, all with Bubble charms around them to keep from breaking. They were all assorted shapes and sizes and delightfully different colours.

She set the box on his desk without asking, and began pulling out all the bottles, leaning down to look closely at them. There were three red ones, two blue, two green, two yellow and one clear, and all with various differences—some were tall and thin and some were squat and fat, and one was even shaped like an hourglass. She picked that one up, turning it over and over in her fingers, memorising the bumps and smooth places.

"I got the hourglass one because of your third year, when you had to—"

"Use the Time-Turner," she said through the lump still in her throat. "I'm surprised you remember."

"Of course. You were constantly emotional."

She looked up and saw his smile had widened—just by a fraction, of course—even more, and shook her head.

"That I was."

"So you like them?"

She set the hourglass bottle down and nodded, letting her fingers linger over the tops of them.

"They're wonderful."

"I had them custom-made, just for you to have your very own set. They'll come in handy, and they're made with the finest glass. Just be sure one of your students doesn't take one while stealing ingredients for an advanced potion." He smirked and she let out a nervous laugh.

"I'll do my best." They held gazes for an excruciatingly long moment before he seemed to remember his own gift; while she blushed harder he unwrapped the present carefully. He turned the book over to the cover and his eyes widened, his mouth falling open slightly as he traced the gold lettering with his fingers.

"This is an Avery book," he stated, but Hermione couldn't reply; anticipation knotted her stomach. "It's the last one in print, if I'm not mistaken."

He opened the cover and his eyes widened further. Avery's heavy black lettering greeted her eyes and he scanned it, smiled a little more, and then shifted his eyes to her note in smaller, neat cursive. She didn't have to reread it to know what all it said.

_Dear Severus,_

_Isn't it something, that I can now call you that? I would have never imagined myself in this position but here we are, and it's gotten much better. I'm still grateful you chose me for this job, and I hope I won't let you down with how I do after this is all done._

_I have to admit, I wanted to say some more things here, but I'm not sure the words will come just yet. Instead, I will thank you for opening yourself to me, little by little. I know it's hard for you, and this seems a bit odd for someone in my position to say, but you've done well. And it means a lot to me that you would trust me more and more. I will never abandon that trust._

_I should use this to tell you: you mean a lot to me._

_Thank you,_

_Hermione Granger_

Severus closed the book, slowly raising his eyes to meet her own. She wasn't sure how he would react, and she almost immediately regretted writing what she had because her mind went to the worst place. What if he got angry? What if it all went back to how it was in September and October and all the fights they'd had? What if he pushed her away just as quickly as it took him to read that and they rarely spoke except for instructions or reprimands or—? She could see it now; he'd react differently and get up from his chair and walk over to her and—no, that wasn't like him at all. Would he—?

"Thank you." He said almost curtly. "It's a gift I'll enjoy thoroughly."

Her face fell as his tone rang cold. She knew she'd been taking a risk with the note but she hadn't thought one of the worst-case scenarios would actually _happen_. That wasn't the way it was supposed to work...was it? Weren't they supposed to continue opening up to one another and—

"Do you need anything else?" he said, and it was then she realized tears were brimming at her eyes.

"N-no," she muttered, hurriedly placing the bottles back in the package, keeping her head lowered so he wouldn't see any tears. "Thank you for the present." She brokenly said before hurrying out.

In her room she shut the door firmly and placed the box on her bedside table before she collapsed onto the bed, sobs choking her and shoulders shaking. She grabbed a pillow and punched it with all her strength, a sound escaping from her throat, only causing her to cry harder. She felt like a schoolgirl again, crying into her pillow about someone of the opposite sex—but this time instead of Ron, it was Snape. She'd cried about him before but it had been years ago, when he'd called her an insufferable know-it-all. Why did she write that stupid note in the first place? She could have at least not been so naive and seen where it would land her. But he seemed to be making such progress—he hadn't recoiled when she'd made him touch her, so what went wrong? _Happy Christmas to me._

The emotions that went through Hermione in a matter of hours exhausted her, and even though she berated herself for reacting the way she was—like a child, she felt—she couldn't help but also feel as though it were all warranted. _He _was the one acting like a child. As she repeated this mantra she felt her eyelids grow heavy and at some point, she fell into a restless sleep, and awoke around dinner-time. She glanced out the window and saw the sky was already an inky-black from shorter wintertime days.

She got up, washed her face, pulled her hair back, straightened her clothes, and set out for the Great Hall. It was sparse which made it hard to avoid Severus; still, she sat on the opposite side of McGonagall, who said nothing about how Hermione looked, despite the fact that she most likely knew something was up. Hermione left dinner as soon as she was finished eating, beating Snape back to the dungeons by only a second. She went straight to her room and closed the door, sat in the chair by her window and tried to read...but she couldn't concentrate.

She got up, walked around her room for a bit, and finally decided she could use some fresh cold air to clear her mind. The dungeons were more and more oppressive by the minute and she needed to get out. So she threw a jumper on over her plain long-sleeved shirt, not even bothering with a scarf or hat or gloves or heavy shoes, and opened her door—to find Snape standing in front of it, fist raised to knock.

"What is it?" she responded as coldly as she could—which wasn't extremely so, since she wasn't that kind of person by nature. It would take practice for her to get to his level.

"You left this one in my room," he held up one of the red bottles.

She snatched it away and curled her fingers tightly around it.

"Thanks," she said through gritted teeth.

He spun on his heel to walk away to his room, but stopped halfway down the corridor and turned back to look at her. She shut the door again, placed the bottle on her dresser, and after a moment, during which he knocked, returned to him. Her curiosity always tugged at her conscience until she indulged it. He was standing there again, his expression annoyed, but she didn't give him a chance to respond.

Something within her had snapped, and she wanted destruction: destruction of the wall he'd put up around himself. She'd come so far in putting cracks in it; now the cracks were splintering outward, shooting off one another in branches and veins and she wanted now to completely shatter it with all of her might, all of her balled-up feelings behind it, and so she grabbed the front of his robes and pulled him to her almost violently and crushed her lips against his.

It certainly wasn't the more romantic of first kisses between two people, but their relationship itself was far from romantic. She wanted to destroy him in his closed-off world and this temperamental environment, and so she pressed harder against him, her mind taking a minute or two to realize his hands were on her hips, fingers pressing hard into them, his tongue sweeping her bottom lip.

She opened her mouth to him and he shifted them around so that her back hit the wall of the corridor and his body weight trapped her there. She lifted her eyelids halfway to see his brow furrowed and a lock of hair clinging to his forehead and he must have realized she was looking at him because his eyes opened and he drew back.

"So that's what you wanted," he said with a smirk, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, "_Miss Granger_."

Something flared up inside her but she couldn't tell if it was desire or anger—or two sides of the same coin.

"No, I wanted you to acknowledge what I said!"

"I don't know what to say to something like that," he said loudly, perhaps more loudly than she'd ever heard him aside from when he discovered Dawson making a move on her. "Nobody's ever said anything like that to me before."

"You could start with 'thank you,'" she said, breathing hard from the kiss and from the heatedness of this argument, adrenaline rushing through her veins. "I told you that you should start with realizing you deserve more, and I don't think you've even _tried _that, have you?"

"It's not something a person can immediately accomplish," his voice dropped in volume.

"You could at least make an effort."

He stared a moment before saying softly, "Thank you for your letter."

"There's something."

"I won't deny," he visibly swallowed and straightened up, "I have...certain feelings about this, too. It would be foolish of me to do so. As it is, no...physical contact beyond professionalism is strictly prohibited in the apprentice-mentor rules, but it is far from encouraged as well—remember the charms on your room. I believe it should be played on a case-to-case basis, however."

"And what's this case?"

He sighed.

"You've always been mature for your age," he said. "But you have to ask yourself if this is what_ you _want. I'm not somebody worth wasting time—"

"Don't. Just don't do that, or say that, or whatever, because I'm tired of the self-deprecating act when it comes to someone I think is incomparably brave and, despite how...perceived or—or self-painted, caring."

His mouth fell slightly open.

"I wouldn't have said what I did, or done what I did just now if I didn't believe these things about you or feel something for you. And maybe it's taken me this long to admit it to myself more than to you but, well, here it is. Happy Christmas."

She felt tears stinging her eyes again—_why?_—but stepped forward to lift a hand to his face.

"I'm sorry it took me this long to do something about it." She said softly before pressing her lips against his again.

-o-

His eyes stayed open a second longer before he let them fall shut, brought his hands to her waist _again_ and pressed back almost urgently at her mouth _again_. His fingers felt clumsy and he wanted nothing more than to touch her skin again, for her to _want _him to touch her skin again, and so he slipped his right hand beneath her shirt just to rest at her side, to test her reaction. She breathed in sharply but made a noise in her throat that sounded like encouragement, and so he pushed her jumper up—not her shirt just yet—and she drew back and put her arms up to let him pull the sweater off.

He knew it wasn't something they should be doing, and even whispered it before she captured his lips again and he no longer cared. He couldn't deny he'd been suppressing feelings and typical male thoughts for a while now—especially since she made him touch her scar—but this still felt surreal. He was too old, she was too young—old enough, but still young—and she deserved so much...no. She deserved what she wanted, and if this was really what she wanted, whom she'd chosen over anyone else in her age group, then he would accept it.

A surge of boldness rushed through his blood, and he moved his fingers to trace the lace neckline of her pyjama singlet and he felt her sigh against him. But she stepped back, using the few inches proximity to the wall allowed her.

"This is a big step in a new direction," she said, her choice of words strange though he could see she felt a little strange; perhaps her mind was processing the turn of events.

"I agree."

She gave him a lopsided smile, and he wanted to kiss her once more. Instead he settled for running his hand down her arm. It was all her fault, really, for making him touch her that night; she'd started this fire in his veins, in the pit of his stomach, and this had only fed that flame, and now his throat felt tight with the thought of all the feelings he held and never admitted to himself until, well, now.

"It will be fine," she said softly, somehow sensing the turmoil inside him. He didn't know why there even _was _turmoil anymore. "We have plenty of time ahead of us."

And as he looked at her in the firelight from the brazier, he realised she was right. He'd waited this long, and now, for the first time in a long time, he was thinking of the future, of the potential future _with _somebody. He hadn't thought of just how much she might mean to him until now, and even though the very idea of meaning something to someone else baffled him, her words echoed in his head. _"We have plenty of time ahead of us." _

_Yes, _he thought, _and I hope you will be patient with me. _Her smile seemed to say, _I will be this and so much more_.

And he really was quite all right with that.

-o-

**(A/N: **Well, I didn't get it out in time for Christmas, but at least it's sooner than my other chapter updates have been, yeah? Special thanks, love, and dedication go out to Amber who is a glorious pep-talker [I couldn't have done it this soon without her!] and someone I hope I haven't killed with this update. Remember, there's much more to come!**)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

For a girl her age, Hermione has seen a lot of sunrises. She knows well the beginnings of the morning, knows the lighter slate-blue bleeding into inky-black, knows the way it filters through the gap in curtains and the sounds of those one or two birds that start their morning songs before most of the rest of the world can hear them. But Hermione usually greets sunrises in the common room, having stayed up to finish a paper that isn't due for another week, or revising said paper the morning it's due. Sometimes it's for a good book she can't put down even to sleep. Rarely, if ever, is it because of a romantic interest. At the rarest of times, it's because of one of her dreams. But here she sat, her mind whirling with the previous evening's events while pale blue light filtered through the gap in the dark-purple curtains of her room.

She hadgotten some sleep, but after seven hours her body decided it had had enough, and so, starting at five o'clock, she began thinking. At first she'd been extremely embarrassed upon remembering her actions—that she'd kissed _Severus Snape_, something she wouldn't have imagined herself doing even three months ago when she started this apprenticeship—but then she remembered that he'd encouraged her and kissed her back in a way she didn't think him capable. And that was ridiculous, because Severus Snape was human like everyone else, and she was sure had shared human moments with someone else before.

And even though she didn't necessarily feel _close _to fully cracking the mystery of him, she knew she'd destroyed the outer wall. She'd gotten clos_er_, and that was all that mattered for now.

She turned over and took one of the bottles he'd given her out of the box, which still sat on her bedside table. She'd picked out a green one, which was slender with a small bauble at the bottom. She traced the glass, catching sight of her reflection—tired but happy—and tried to count the air bubbles trapped inside, to no avail (or at least, to five-hundred-seventy). Small bubbles had almost escaped, forming tiny bumps, but she liked them. Tiny marks that made the bottles truly unique. His words echoed—_"custom-made, just for you to have your own set_." She couldn't help the smile that spread over her face.

She turned onto her back, still holding the bottle. She drew her knees up, her feet just on the edge of the bed, and fixed her eyes on the ceiling. How many nights had she stared at this same ceiling, wishing she'd never taken the job? Wishing she were working for the Ministry or home with her parents or at the Burrow for one of Molly Weasley's dinners, or anywhere but here? How many times had she contemplated quitting while staring up at this ceiling, while crying, the tears running down into her ears? It was all hard to believe.

She had no idea how she would tell Harry and Ron—not that it was particularly their business, but they would find out eventually. Maybe she wouldn't tell them just yet; it wasn't as though there was anything definitive to even tell them, anyway.

Hermione sat up and, sighing, decided she wouldn't be able to sleep more and might as well get up. She showered, brushed her teeth and dressed, stepping out into the hallway. She thought of looking through one of the many books out in the classroom to refresh her memory of some variety of potions, but something caught her eye. Severus had left his door partly open. _An invitation?_, she wondered. She couldn't imagine so, but walked over anyway, peering in.

She was surprised to see the professor sitting up against the headboard, covers around his waist—chest bare, to which she felt her face grow hot—as he read. _The Avery book_, she thought with a smile she couldn't suppress. He looked up and merely arched his eyebrows, but Hermione could see a small lift at the corner of his mouth.

"Hermione," he said by way of greeting.

She took it as invitation to enter and stepped in, her heartbeat already accelerated. She had a question in mind and wasn't quite sure what his response might be, despite last night's progress.

"You look like you're dying to ask something," he said, setting the book down in his lap. "I'd know that look anywhere."

"Yes." She summoned her Gryffindor courage and walked in farther, padding over to his bed and sitting on the edge next to him, her leg slung over on the bed so her knee was touching his leg, though over the covers, as she faced him.

"I was wondering if I could...erm...seeyourscar." It all rushed out by the end but she never broke eye contact.

"I have many scars," he replied almost..._teasingly_? It couldn't be, but she blushed harder all the same.

"Yes, but you said you have one like mine—that night you touched it."

"Indeed I do. Not from the same spell, but similar in size and overall look. I have two like it, actually. The first—" he shifted a little—"is here."

She swallowed hard and broke eye contact to finally look at his chest; he was thin and pale, of course—she hadn't expected anything else—and held his hand over a place just off-centre from his sternum, mid-ribs—almost like hers, but on the opposite side and more in the front than wrapping around the side, and higher up. He had more, lighter scars in varying sizes but all smaller than the one he was to show her, scattered around on his upper body—arms and chest and stomach alike—that she wanted to know the story of each one; instead, she settled now for the one.

He uncovered it and the light filtering in through his window—curtains open more than hers—cast the same silvery light over it. She leaned in close and saw that it _was _different around the edges, as he'd said then. It seemed like forever ago. She lifted her hand, then looked up—he nodded and said, "Go ahead; it's only fair," in a voice that seemed thicker than usual—and so, heart thudding heavily—she reached out and let her fingers glide over it slowly. She wondered if it had ever made him self-conscious, if anybody had seen it since he'd gotten it. She wondered if he felt the same way she did, how she said she felt back when he'd first seen hers—that scars were stories waiting to be told. She supposed she would always find others' stories fascinating, but his especially.

She felt him inhale rather sharply, and swore she could hear his heartbeat—or was that her own blood rushing in her ears?—and she pressed a little harder. Then she switched hands, pressing her left palm flat against his skin, sliding her thumb over it, trying to memorise its feel, its differences to hers. Suddenly he grabbed her hand and pulled it away; when she looked up quizzically, he put his other hand beneath her chin and kissed her, his lips pressing softly against hers, though it felt almost restrained. It didn't feel quite like _him_.

It was hard for her to believe even now that he was kissing her, that _he _had kissed _her_, that he'd let her come into his bedroom and touch him—and then he drew back and arched his eyebrows.

"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious.

"I was curious as to whether you were just emotionally compromised last night even after we'd stopped arguing," he explained calmly, as if he were teaching a new potion. "I now see that even if you were, you're still fine with this."

She couldn't help but feel a little indignant.

"You're saying you didn't feel I was thinking clearly?" she tried to keep her voice steady, though she knew he had a point. She really hadn't been thinking clearly, even if she still stood by her decision, having acted on latent desires anyway.

"I was merely confirming your decision after we've had time to think things over."

"And what about you? What's _your _decision after thinking things over?"

"I'm fine with it. It's still strange to me, but if you're certain you—"

"Don't say it. I'm 'certain,'" she smirked. "It _is _strange, isn't it? I never really thought, of all people—no offence—and I mean, I got really angry when Ron and Malfoy insinuated we were romantically involved back when I was starting here but—"

"Draco did?" Snape snorted. "He undoubtedly assumed such a thing was why he himself didn't get an offer."

"Do you even have to ask? And he thought I was afraid of him beating me on our N.E.W.T.s."

"That's a good example of why I didn't ask him. His insecurity and ability to get into something—or saying something—without thinking first was the main reason why he was dropped from consideration. I would have thought he would know me better than that, but then again, he was speaking impulsively, I'm sure."

"Was I always your first choice?"

"You were always high in my considerations. I never had a 'first' or a 'second' choice. I simply narrowed down the options I did have."

She laughed. "That's comforting."

He looked a little like he was surprised to hear her laugh, as if he'd never heard it before, and she felt her face grow hot again.

"Can I see your other scar?"

He looked at her—appraising her—for what felt like an eternity before he shifted forward, clutching the sheets still up to his waist, though she could see a hint of hip bones and averted her gaze quickly, and he turned, twisting around and hitching up sheets behind him. He pointed to a large vertical slash on his back right hip that stretched from his waist to just to the right of a Venus dimple. Her face grew to astronomical temperatures but she leaned forward anyway and traced it carefully like she had the other. _It must have been a deeper wound, _she thought, _but still not fatal._ She found the way his back muscles contracted and moved in response to her touch mesmerizing, but sat quickly back up before he could tell her he'd had enough and—god forbid—changed his disposition.

"Satisfied?" he asked.

She smoothed her hands over her thighs and smiled before tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She knew she was fidgeting but couldn't quit. She stood up before further embarrassing herself.

"For now." She nodded her head toward the door. "But now, I'm going to get breakfast. See you."

-o-

"_For now_"? What the hell did _that _mean?

Severus pushed aside the Avery book and sat back against the headboard, sighing. So she was still all right with the idea of 'them' as an 'us,' but the fact still remained that he'd let somebody into his life in ways he swore he never would. Back when he swore it to himself, it was because of the danger he was constantly in and because it was simply not conducive to the work he had to do. And, of course, because of his connection to Lily Evans, as he'd known her all their lives growing up.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. Lily and Hermione were so different, so he had no reason to compare the two, and even though he'd invited Hermione to live with him, she'd done so much more than that; she'd blown into his life, confronted him like he'd never expected out of her, now unbound by her promoted status from student, and now invaded even the corners of his mind. Now, when he least expected it, he thought of the slope of her neck joining her shoulder, or her collarbones, or the scar that started it all, or how she sighed against him.

Severus sighed—yet again—and decided that even though what he really wanted was a bath without time restraints, he wanted breakfast more, and so he settled for a shower before dressing and going up to the Great Hall. Hermione and Minerva were engaged in quite an active conversation, replete with hand gesturing and smiles here and there—perhaps more smiles from Minerva than he'd ever seen—and so he sat on the opposite side of Minerva and fixed up a plate.

He participated in the conversation when it opened up to him but didn't put much thought into it; his mind was preoccupied with the feel of her fingers sliding across and her breath accompanying them on his skin, on the smell of her hair when she'd leaned down to study him like she'd studied so many texts, his skin the words she'd traced with her fingers before in old books. He cut his eyes at her throughout the meal, catching the smallest things like the way her tongue flicked out over the corner of her mouth just after she drank pumpkin juice, the way her nose crinkled when she smiled or laughed, the way she tapped her fingers against her goblet like she heard a song in her head nobody else knew.

He excused himself as Hermione gathered her dishes all onto one, continuing her conversation with Minerva, and conversed far longer than he wished with Flitwick who had some kind of issue with a spell and its intended effects—something he normally wouldn't have minded as much if Flitwick hadn't been so stubborn and listened to him the first time he'd told him the solution—before heading down to the dungeons. He was just in time to see Hermione heading down the hallway to her room, and followed. She threw open her door and flopped face-forward onto her bed—strange behaviour, Severus mused, but then again she was a nineteen-year-old female. Perhaps that's something they did, something that carried over from younger years. Either way, it was ridiculous to spend time thinking about something so ridiculously mundane.

He knocked on the doorframe and she merely moved her head to look at him, a smile spreading over her features.

"Yes?" her voice was muffled even though she faced him from the sheets bunched around her.

"What do you say," he paused, trying to figure out how to ask what he'd only thought of a few minutes before, "if you and I...we, I suppose—" she furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to say something but he held up his hand, "go...for dinner?"

"Go for dinner? Now? But we just—"

"No, of _course _not now. Tonight—it's for _dinner_. By ourselves, I mean, away from Hogwarts."

She sat up, using her hand to prop herself up. Her long hair fell over her shoulders, curtaining her face on the sides.

"You're asking me on a _date_?" the corner of her mouth—the same corner she licked at breakfast—lifted.

He huffed lightly. "Well, I suppose that's what you'd consider it."

She grinned and stood, curtsying. He frowned in confusion but felt a small smile tugging at his own mouth. She stood up straight.

"I'd be honoured to go to dinner with you. _ Away _from Hogwarts."

He huffed again and she laughed. Her laugh was something he still wasn't used to hearing around him; he'd heard it, of course, and he was sure it had annoyed him at some point during her years as a student, but he found it strange to be the cause of her laughter, or at the very least, the only witness to it at times.

"Good. Tomorrow night? Six?"

"Absolutely."

He turned on his heel and left, closing his door behind him. Had he actually _done _that? Asked a woman on a date? Much less a former student? A former student he was _living with_?

Of one thing he was certain: Hermione Granger was well on her way to turning his life upside-down, a life he'd grown accustomed to in his thirty-eight years, and there wasn't much he could do to stop her.

He wasn't sure he wanted to.

-o-

Hermione was ready by 5:45. She'd spent the day rereading Potions books to refresh her memory as she'd planned to do that morning before Severus's open door invited her in, and writing letters to her parents and Harry and Ron—and Severus had stayed behind his closed bedroom door the whole day. She made a to-do list for the first week the students would be back and school would start spring term; the first item on the list was to invite Ginny out for butterbeer. She decided she would tell her about the development with Severus first, after swearing her to secrecy, of course. Ginny was the closest female friend she had, and one of the least judgemental friends she had overall. Perhaps the younger girl would have some advice on dealing with her brother when it came time to tell them.

So the evening found Hermione with fifteen minutes to spare before she and Severus traipsed off to wherever he'd decided to take them, and she spent it arranging the bottles on her dresser. She'd chosen a nice, but not overly-dressy, blue top with ruffles down the middle, a grey cardigan and grey skirt, dark blue tights since it was snowing outside, and boots. She'd opted for drawing the upper half of her hair back, securing it with a pearly comb, and no makeup—not that she'd ever been much good at applying it, but it never felt natural anyway.

She'd rearranged the bottles for the seventh time when Severus knocked at her door, and she grabbed her cloak and scarf before answering with a bright smile.

"Good evening!"

She felt her cheeks grow warm as he looked her over. He wore what she assumed was his nice set of robes—they had a silver clasp in the shape of a snake in the middle of the chest where it joined—over dress slacks and what looked like a dark green button-down shirt. _How cliché_, she thought with a mental note of his reluctance to stray from the Slytherin path, even when it came to clothes.

"Yes," he said almost stiffly, his own cloak thrown over his arm. "I figured we could go to a place in Diagon Alley—to minimise the risk of others suspecting anything—" she suppressed a giggle; he sounded so much like a professor, "and I've always been curious as to its quality. Unless, of course, you have a place in mind."

"That sounds fine. So we'll Apparate just outside of Hogsmeade?"

"Correct."

"Then let's go," she pulled on her cloak and scarf and they walked beside one another through the dungeons and entrance hall. Once they reached Hogsmeade, Hermione wasn't sure she'd be able to ever feel her face again; the snow was swirling almost angrily around them, and she wondered why she hadn't opted to put all her hair up. He grabbed her elbow—like he had almost two months ago—and pulled her aside. They were between the gate and the Three Broomsticks, and his body was close to hers; she felt his hair brush against her temple.

"I'll go ahead and Apparate us. It's too cold to go to the end of Hogsmeade," he said quickly and quietly before Disapparating.

Once she'd regained her senses she found them in front of a small, squat building with red half-lifted curtains in the windows and what looked like dim lighting. She felt a twist in her gut, as if she hadn't really thought of this as a _date _until now. A date...it was strange, especially considering she hadn't even been consistently happy with him until last month...or even a few weeks ago.

"Let's go in already," he said. "You can admire it when it's warmer."

She rolled her eyes but followed him quickly through the doors, swatting snow from her hair as they were seated. She originally declined wine but quickly changed her mind and ordered a glass, as did he. It was heavenly, warming her face and hands almost immediately. He sipped occasionally, but looked extremely unnatural sitting across from her; he sat up straight, glancing around every few seconds.

The waiter came to refill their glasses and almost spilled Hermione's wine as the neck of the bottle hit the glass and sent it falling. Her hands shot out and she cradled it just as the wine in the bottle poured out. The waiter had seemed very nervous and flustered for no obvious reason since they'd been seated, and she somewhat dreaded how this would go over with Severus. She couldn't imagine well, but perhaps he would surprise her.

"You haven't been here before, so you don't know what's good, correct?" she tried her best to sound as professor-like as he had to diffuse the tension, but when he arched an eyebrow at her in response she snorted. "It was a serious question, though."

"Correct again. I have no idea. But I'm thinking of this," he turned his menu around and pointed to number forty-three.

"I was thinking twenty-nine myself."

So they ordered their respective choices and were midway through the soup that came as a side to both dishes when Severus sat up straight and frowned.

"What's wrong?"

He said nothing to her in response and instead waved over the waiter. She felt slightly annoyed at being rebuffed, but picked the wrong moment to take an annoyed, extra-large sip of wine, as Severus spoke.

"Yes, John, was it? Might I have a word with the cook so that I can inform him that I can make a stew twice as good with a cauldron in my classroom, you bumbling buffoon?" said Snape.

Hermione made an extremely unattractive noise as she almost spewed the wine back out, and held the glass to her face in case he spoke again, the wine sloshing against her mouth.

"Uh—er—yes, yes sir, I'll tell him." John stumbled off.

"Was that _really _necessary?" she said in a hushed yet sharp voice. "You couldn't at least _try _being polite?"

"I could have said much more," he said coolly, rearranging the napkin on his lap. "I only spoke the truth. The cook is clearly unqualified to do his job, and that waiter is a poor excuse for a server."

"Maybe it's his first night!" Hermione was growing angrier by the second; why had she thought things would be different? Now he wasn't getting mad at her, but undeserving strangers while they were out together, and that was almost worse—or much worse, she wasn't sure. "That doesn't excuse you from acting like a prat. I'll leave if you can't at least be polite about your dissatisfaction."

He stared in stunned silence for a moment before he sighed, his shoulders relaxing.

"That would certainly be an unsuccessful ending to an evening out," he said. She took another long drink of wine, unsure as to whether or not he was attempting to apologise. Probably not.

"So what's your idea of a successful date?" she asked, feeling warmer and warmer in a way proportionate to the amount of alcohol in her system.

He narrowed his eyes before taking another drink of his own wine.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She didn't get a chance to answer—which was fortunate, because she wasn't really sure what she'd been going for—because the waiter returned with their entrees.

"The cook sincerely apologises and hopes this will be more to your taste." He set their plates down—shakily, of course—and refilled their glasses yet again before leaving.

"I hope he isn't expecting much in the way of gratuity." Severus said, cutting the steak he'd gotten.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"A successful end to _my _evening would be if you could go the rest of dinner without complaining," she said, cutting into her own meal.

He stared again.

"I'll do my best, then."

Two glasses of wine—each—and a meal he admitted to enjoying later (as well as an added tip Hermione slipped beneath the bowl that had held her soup), they leisurely walked the streets of Diagon Alley, the top of Gringotts almost always in sight. Hermione was admittedly worse at handling her alcohol than he was, though he seemed to be talking more than he usually did, which was strange in and of itself, but certainly not unwelcome. Hermione played with the ends of her scarf, waving them around as they meandered, and Severus kept glancing at her before shaking his head—every time, he shook his head, but she hardly noticed. It seemed like a new addition every time he glanced over—she'd commented on it six times, in fact.

"What drew you to Potions in the first place?" she asked after they'd been discussing a myriad of topics, more loudly than she probably intended. "Was it just something you were good at?"

"It was something I was just passionate about. You always feel an inexplicable pull toward something—I've witnessed it in students for years, and my peers as well—and you just learn it, breathe it. You must _need _to learn it, to become well-versed in it, to acquire as much knowledge as you possibly can. It was something I enjoyed from the first time I sat in class."

She nodded and reached out, grabbing at his sleeve under his cloak.

"I understand." They stopped walking and he turned to face her fully.

"I know you do," he said. "You were always a candidate for that very reason. You were one of the few who had a true passion for the art of potions."

She was still holding onto his sleeve, and so she moved his arm forward and placed his hand on her hip. He shifted his fingers, pressing them against her firmly.

"Isn't this weird?" She tilted her head, trying to find the words in her mind, fuzzy with alcohol but sharpening the longer they stood or walked in the cold. "I mean, a year ago, you were still my professor and you were still cold. I mean, we're both cold right now, but emotionally, you know."

"Yes," he reached out his other hand to readjust her cloak, which had shifted on her shoulders. She grabbed his wrist and, never moving her gaze from his, pressed her lips to his palm. "Hermione, you're—"

"Don't say I've had too much to drink, because I'm only tipsy," she said with a crooked smile which quickly faded. "I'm serious. I'm just—" she sighed quickly; the words weren't coming to her quickly enough. "Look. Despite you making the waiter even more nervous than he already was," he rolled his eyes but she continued, "I had a good time. I'm _having _a good time."

"It was nice to get out of the castle," he agreed.

"It's strange to do it during the school year, even if it's Christmas. I guess because I never Apparated even just outside of the school grounds," she let go of his hand and he dropped his other from her hip, and they began walking again. She felt the fuzziness in her mind receding; unfortunately, so was the inner warmth from the alcohol. "I think we should go back. It's cold again."

He let out a noise which sounded almost like a chuckle.

"Agreed." He offered his arm and she took it, and there was that familiar squeezing-in-the-gut sensation before they were back at the gate of Hogsmeade.

"I wasn't sure I should try, even though I'm feeling better." She admitted.

He looked at her quizzically; she hadn't moved to let go of his arm.

"Are you _sure_ you still want to try this...you know, us? I mean, you hated me not even three months ago."

"I didn't hate you," he said before sighing, his breath hanging in a cloud that quickly dissipated. She didn't even think about the cold anymore. "There were plenty of times I wasn't sure I would be able to get through this whole thing, that I would have to choose someone else. But I never hated you."

"Are you telling the truth?" She stepped back but he countered, moving closer to her.

"You've always intrigued me, Hermione," his voice was low. "Your being here—even when we fought and you surely hated _me_—was just a way for me to try and understand you. To find out how your mind works."

She felt heat rising to her face—a sensation she was getting to know more and more, and looked away.

"I'm sorry I hated you," she mumbled. "I actually did, I think, for a while. But to be fair, you have no excuse to act as you did to us. To all of us, Harry and Ron too! And Neville—especially Neville. I got upset a lot because of you during my years here as a student, and of course in the beginning of this apprenticeship."

She looked back up at him to see surprise etched on his face, but not anger, oddly enough. She'd been preparing herself for the worst.

"But I don't hate you at all now," she said quietly. "I respect you a lot, actually. That's something I always have done, but now even more...because of how much you've let me in."

She scoffed.

"It sounds so cliché and stupid when I say it out loud."

"No, it doesn't. And I deserve all of that."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Excuse me?"

"I've said and done things that were extremely uncalled-for. I've never been good at this, at empathising."

"Well, you're okay with me," she said, smiled, and grasped fistfuls of his cloak, pulling him forward to kiss him.

His hands pressed against her back, pulling her against him, but he drew back, resting his cheek against her hair.

"I'm sorry, but I still need some time to get used to this, to this idea of 'us'," he said, though every single fibre in his body ached to touch her, to memorise her curves and sighs and hear the different ways she could say his name.

"Take all the time you need," she said, though she too wanted to feel nothing more than him opening up to her in the most intimate of ways. _The alcohol isn't helping_, nagged a voice in the back of her head; she shoved it aside. "It's strange for me, too."

"Let's head back, shall we? It's surely late."

She nodded, and they trudged back up the wide, sloping grounds to the castle in silence, the snow crunching beneath their feet, Hermione's legs cold despite the tights.

"Was this a successful date, then, now that we've reached the end?" he asked as they stood in the hallway leading to their bedrooms.

"Yes." She quickly kissed him on the lips; it was gone before he could process it properly. "Goodnight, Severus."

"Goodnight, Hermione."

As she closed her door, she leaned back against it, a smile wide on her face. She wasn't sure she could ever get tired of hearing him say her first name, and she wasn't sure she could ever get tired of saying _his _first name. Perhaps it was dangerous, frowned upon, against some unspoken rule—but for one of many times in her life, she found herself disregarding the rules.

_Ever the Gryffindor, _she thought with a laugh.

But life was constantly shifting and changing with the slightest of actions, and she would move with the current. She was happy, and that was all that mattered.

-o-

**(A/N: Gasp – an actual long chapter! So...just so you all are warned, the next chapter delves pretty quickly into the 'M'-rated part of this fic. Thanks again to Amber, ever my faithful companion in this process, and for the line. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway, this was written between the hours of midnight and 7am, so I apologise for any gross errors. I didn't find any while proofreading but that doesn't really mean a thing.**

**Chapter 9 should be up soon!)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

She ran and ran, shouting spells over her shoulder, dodging falling rocks and the heads of statues and blasts from nearby spells being shouted ather. This was the last battle, the Department of Mysteries locked away in her mind, and her heart pounded in her ears with it all. A figure jumped out in front of her and she shrieked; it was a man, a man she knew from his silhouette alone—Dolohov again, always the recurring part of any nightmare, always the villain and his spell and her fate never changed. He shouted the curse at her, slicing open her skin and she yelled with the pain, bent over and trying to summon the strength to concentrate enough to fire back at him, but she couldn't, and nothing was coming out of her mouth, and—

She woke, in a bed in the dungeons of Hogwarts, in nothing but darkness save for a slice of moonlight spilling across the bed between dark silhouetted purple curtains, her stomach vaguely sore with clenched muscles, her skin covered in sweat.

"I'm here," she whispered, surprised even in real life to hear her voice. It was the night before students returned to Hogwarts, and they'd spent their last days of freedom doing separate things—Severus reading, and Hermione mixing potions and refreshing her practical skills.

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut, but her body seemed to want only one thing: some form of strange comfort, no sweet words or rags on her forehead or hot showers. A comfort available to her tonight. And so she did the only thing she could think of and threw back the covers, walking to Severus's room, where she entered without knocking.

He was stirring awake—obviously she'd had _some _kind of voice outside of her dream—and was half-sitting up, leaning on his elbow as he squinted at her.

"Her...mione?" he said in a low, raspy voice. She walked over and grabbed his other hand, and slid it beneath her singlet to press on her scar. His skin was cool and felt pleasant against the heat of the scar, and though relief flooded her, she couldn't help but feel a pull toward him still.

He was sitting up more now, sliding his hand over her side and across her back, drifting up to brush his fingers against the nape of her neck before gliding down again to press against her scar again. She shifted and grabbed his face and kissed him—hard, like the first kiss they'd shared, like she was putting all her raw need for human contact, for confirmation that this _wasn't _a dream, for validation for her feelings for him, into this kiss. And he didn't resist; in fact, it was his teeth that tugged at her bottom lip, his tongue that slid along hers, his hand that cupped her breast. This was the kiss that felt like him, like Severus Snape who'd held back for so long, who hadn't had this kind of connection with somebody else in years, like a soul yearning for another soul in every way imaginable.

"Please," she mumbled against his lips, tears filling her eyes as she opened them and looked at him.

"Yes," he said simply in a hoarse voice before kissing her again, pulling her leg to his side and pulling her closer so she was situated between his legs, he still half-covered in the sheets, but nevertheless she was close to him. He felt her legs against his sides, and he pushed her singlet up over the top of her head. He moved aside her hair which fell over her breasts and tongued one nipple, his fingers teasing her other. She shuddered at the sensations rippling through her, which only heightened when he moved his mouth to kiss her scar before running his tongue over it.

She let out a breathy "oh" as he kissed his way back up her chest, sucking lightly here and there, kissing that slope between her neck and shoulder that drove him mad, then her jawline, then her mouth again; they shifted and slid up the bed to allow him to sit back and push apart her knees. Then he looked back up at her face and she grew quickly irritated.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Do I look like I'm not?" she snapped.

Perhaps it was the interrupted sleep, or the boiling over of urges and thoughts she'd had for a while now turning into real life, no longer the stuff of fantasies and daydreams—but she was in no mood to discuss her deepest feelings. He nodded, seemly understanding, and pulled off her shorts and knickers in one motion. He slipped his fingers beneath a knee and slid his hand up her thigh before resting this thumb on her, finding her clit quickly. She gasped and her hips lifted off the bed, and he studied her face as it moved and contorted in beautiful ways, memorising the sound of her breath coming in irregular pants and light moans, a hiss of "Severus" escaping her mouth before she reached down and stopped his hand.

"This is great—amazing, actually," she said in a staccato of sorts, broken in a wonderful way, "but I just need _you_ right now. All of you."

He nodded, his throat too tight to form words or even sounds, and he pushed aside the sheets, positioning himself over her, his lips capturing hers again as he grabbed first her left leg to lift over his waist, then her right to do the same, before he pushed inside her in a single long stroke. She moaned against his mouth and her legs tightened around him and he tried to savour the moment and how she felt around him, but his body wouldn't let him stay still, and so he began to move and she met his rolling hips with her own, somehow in sync with him; it came naturally to her, like so many other things. He broke the kiss to let his head drop onto her shoulder, and he was vaguely aware of her fingernails digging into his back before she pushed against his chest and shifted so he rolled onto his back, his hands holding her hips as she moved on top of him. She chewed on her bottom lip as she moved and he found it to be one of the most beautiful things anyone had ever done.

His fingers gripped her hips so tightly she knew she would have bruises, but she didn't care—those were stories, too, but only for the two of them—and all she could concentrate on was the sensation of him filling her, of their bodies joining in the most intimate of ways, of the feel of his hand moving up to squeeze her breast, the other moving down to circle her again, the feel of his thighs beneath her hands as she panted and sighed until she moaned, "Severus, oh _god_," and placed her hand on his chest, leaning forward and riding her release out, clenching around him.

Her hips rocked of their own volition and she shuddered at the slew of sensation blossoming out from her belly into her very veins but she kept up the rhythm, his own breath coming in pants and grunts and two "Hermione"s before his own release came, and he grabbed her hips and pulled her down hard, keeping her still for a moment before again encouraging her to keep moving until he'd been completely spent.

She moved off of him and he tried to refocus his vision as they lay next to each other, hearts still pounding, muscles beginning to ache.

"Was that what you needed?" he finally asked, cutting through the silence of the room broken only by their breathing, which had grown slower.

"Yeah," she said quietly; he looked over, and her eyes were closed. "Yeah, that was it. Human contact."

"Here," he pushed at her shoulder getting her to sit up and move up so her head was on a pillow, and she lazily pulled the sheets around her.

She fell asleep almost immediately, but he couldn't. He couldn't get over the image of her in _his _bed, her damp curly hair dark against the lighter-green pillowcase, sweat still glistening on her forehead lips still swollen and red from hard kisses. Human contact...wasn't that what everybody needed? Maybe not sexually, but to some degree, people needed other people; they were social beings.

He hadn't realised how much that held true for him and how little he'd thought of such a thing until she'd breezed into his life in a more intimate way in September. He hadn't thought of things like her finding him listening to Requiem, or being a presence in the classroom as they graded essays, or the clean smell of her wafting from her room after she took a shower if his door was open, or simply having someone to walk to dinner with—but now it seemed closer to natural than any connection he'd had with anybody else before.

At last he was able to fall into a light sleep, just as the smallest piece of pale-blue dawn filtered through the window, and dreamt of nothing.

-o-

The first thing Hermione noticed when she woke was the heaviness of the comforter on her body. It didn't feel familiar, and as she opened her eyes and blinked a few times, realised she was in a bed with green sheets—again, not too creative of Snape. _Severus...,_ she thought simply, the fact of her presence in his bed hitting her, and she sat up, propping herself on her hand. She was deliciously sore in many places but felt more nervous than anything. He wasn't next to her; she heard the shower running in the adjoining bathroom, and flopped back against the pillows. This ceiling was different from hers—not by much, but enough to be strange to look at. Her mind was fuzzy but she pieced together her memories and then her stomach fluttered with the more vivid moments, and she grew nervous again.

Was he angry? Regretful? Neither?

She glanced over at a clock on his bedside table; it was already eleven o'clock—she'd missed breakfast, she realised with a groan. If he'd gone and she hadn't, it would be a little odd, but if neither of them had gone, surely someone would have noticed. She sat up again, holding the sheet up to her chest as she heard the water shut off, and after a moment, he emerged, wearing only a towel around his thin hips. He stopped and looked at her, his face utterly unreadable.

"Good almost-not-morning," he said. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes," she said. "I didn't realise it was so late."

"I thought about waking you around nine, but figured you needed it. It sounds like you weren't getting good sleep before you visited me." He smirked. "I've been readying the classroom until just a few minutes ago."

She gasped, her eyes wide.

"I forgot everyone comes back today!"

"Well, there's not much to worry about. The classroom is still the same. There were simply some papers I hadn't put with the other graded ones. Remember, it's a _dinner _feast. You've still plenty of time."

He rummaged around in the tall bureau on the wall opposite her, pulling out items of clothes. She felt her face flush and her stomach tighten as she noticed red marks on his back in the little half-moon shapes of her fingernails.

"Lunch starts in half an hour, and I'd imagine you're quite hungry."

"Starving, in fact. Thank you for letting me sleep here, even though I feel bad about it being so late."

"I figure one's body knows when one needs rest." He disappeared into the bathroom again.

"I'll be down in half an hour, then." She said somewhat awkwardly, grabbed all her wayward clothes quickly, and hurried to her own room before he could spot her.

She shut and locked her door before going into the bathroom to start a shower. It had been the middle of the night, and she hadn't been entirely awake, and her emotions had been heightened, but it had been bound to happen anyway. The dream and its psychological effects had increased her initiative and desire for human contact with him, seeking to comfort herself with basic carnal desires with somebody she'd, for all intents and purposes, been sharing a living space with for three—now four—months. True, she'd been half-awake when she'd grabbed his hand and even when she kissed him, but sleep had quickly ebbed and left her with nothing but primal needs.

As she stepped under the hot stream of water, she tried to rationalise her conflicted feelings on the matter. He'd been her teacher for seven long years, and somewhere in her mind she still wasn't entirely used to the idea of being intimate with a person in that position of authority. The teacher-student relationship was a hard role to break out of, even with months of no longer being a student. But she'd begun crossing lines months ago, first in her mind being the moment she noticed his breath against her skin and how their bodies pressed against one another just after he'd dealt with Dawson, when Severus had caught her by the elbow in the hallway.

Then, of course, the night of her dream and her first thoughts of anything beyond the mutual distance between them had sneaked in and taken residence in the back of her mind, until they pushed through and made her make _him _touch her. That had been the proverbial spark, and it was then she was truly—even if forcibly subconsciously most of the time—was past the point of no return regarding him. There'd been that exponential rise in the inevitability of their relationship to advance and what it had finally culminated in last night—early this morning—still felt strange to her.

She decided then she would definitely need to talk to Ginny, even if it meant potentially losing the other girl's respect. Few had ever seen Severus like Hermione had, and she could do her best to explain, but nothing would come close to detailing their growth as two people on different yet similar paths but also as two people joined by a tenuous bond of mutual respect and, on some levels, admiration.

Hermione and Severus walked to lunch side-by-side but made no mention of the night's goings-on. The point of their conversation focused on things left to do before the students arrived and the plan of action for tomorrow, and when he suggested she begin making a lesson plan for the month of February, she let out a noise of excitement, which earned a curious-with-a-hint-of-amused look from him. They sat next to each other, as few professors were actually at lunch right at noon, oddly enough, and again said little in the way of conversation regarding their feelings or thoughts and instead on academia and readying everything.

But Hermione was acutely aware of their elbows touching through most of the meal, of his legs shifting under the table as his knee brushed against her robes, of the way he glanced at her when he asked her to pass the pumpkin juice to him, and wondered how long she would be able to go without demanding that they talk about last night so she would know what to do. Surely if it had been a problem, he would have talked to her first—at least, that's what she told herself as they went about their respective activities, finishing preparations for the next day and otherwise awaiting the arrival of the Hogwarts Express.

She'd never been so happy when it was finally time for the train to stop at the Hogsmeade station, and after sitting through the feast fidgeting the entire time (at one point, Severus looked over at her with a frown, asking what she was doing; she lied and said something about being nervous for tomorrow—another one of those lies she suspected he recognised as such, but he dropped the subject), it was finally—after an excruciatingly long wait—over. McGonagall dismissed everyone, but Ginny hung back outside of the Great Hall.

"We need to talk," said Hermione, grabbing the younger girl's arm and pulling her toward the doors; she spotted Severus talking to Minerva, still inside the Hall, with quite the serious looks on their faces, and she grew nervous.

"Hello to you too!" said Ginny, an eyebrow arched high. "My holidays were wonderful, thank you for asking. Can we talk inside? It's, you know, January out there."

"I'm sorry," Hermione stopped and sighed. "It's just that a _lot _has happened since I saw you last, but I didn't want to write because I wanted to talk about this in person and it all happened fast, too. And no, I don't know if there's anywhere we won't run the risk of being heard in here."

Ginny's eyes narrowed at Hermione's strange behaviour.

"Hermione," she said firmly. "You're the smartest witch our age, and you can't think of a single place in the castle where we can talk in private?"

"Oh. Yeah, yeah, of course."

So they found themselves in the Room of Requirement, Hermione pacing in front of Ginny, who was seated quite comfortably atop a table.

"So, what's got you acting like this? Did something bad happen over the holidays with Snape? Are you leaving or something?"

Hermione shook her head, pushing a hand through her hair and forcing herself to lean back against an armchair. She couldn't sit, but maybe she could make herself stand still this way. She worried her bottom lip before she finally said, "Not bad."

Ginny narrowed her eyes again before they widened and she gasped a loud, "_No_!"

"It's, uh, a weird situation—"

"You better explain this situation, weird or not, _right now_! If it's what I'm thinking you mean...Hermione, what the hell has happened while I've been gone?"

"Well, I—I guess I should start at the beginning. Do you remember the whole Alec Dawson thing?"

"Yeah, the git who tried to come onto you, yeah," Ginny's nose scrunched up. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Well, it's doesn't—not _really_. Well, it does, of course, but it's not anything that's really vital. Just...try to not freak out, okay?"

"Telling me that isn't going to help!" Ginny exclaimed; she was sitting on the edge of the table now, elbows on her knees and her mouth behind her hands. "I'll try, though. Go ahead."

"Well, okay, you know how I still have nightmares about the Department of Mysteries? And Dolohov and the spell?" Ginny nodded. "I had one—"

"Yeah, you mentioned it. Wasn't it right before we left?"

"Oh, I forgot. Yeah, it was that week before."

"Okay, so what about the dream?"

"That night was...weird. I didn't tell anyone this, but for some reason I just kept thinking of—oh, I don't know, this is way too embarrassing to say."

"Now you _have _to tell me!" said Ginny, her eyes wide. "I'm listening—that's what friends do."

Hermione sighed and gritted her teeth; she knew if she didn't say this she wouldn't be able to tell Ginny the rest of the story, and she'd find out eventually anyway. Or force Hermione to stay until she did, which was finding out sooner-than-eventually.

"Well, I was still sleepy or out of it from the dream, but we had tea in his room—it's like a study, too, so it was okay!—" Nevertheless, Ginny's eyes widened more, "and I was looking at his hands and I thought about how strange it was to try and picture him touching a woman...intimately."

"You thought of _that_, of all things?"

"Like I said, I was just kind of out of it. But the thought stayed with me, and one day we were grading papers, and I finally just got up and grabbed his hand and put it on my scar."

"_What_?" Ginny almost yelled and Hermione squeezed her eyes shut.

"Just hold on, okay? There's a lot more."

"But wait. All this happened while we were _gone_?"

"Yeah," Hermione shrugged, though at the time, everything felt excruciatingly slow; perhaps it was the anticipation of what she and Severus, on some level whether subconscious or not, knew what might come. "It kind of snowballed."

"Anyway, that happened and I asked him if he'd ever touched anyone like that before, and he said it'd been a long time, but that's not really all that important except for the fact that he told me something about himself. That he was honest. Is that not weird?"

Ginny nodded.

"So then Christmas came and I had to ask McGonagall for some advice on what to get him, because I had absolutely _no _clue whatsoever. Oh, I made up with Harry and Ron over Christmas, too, but that's irrelevant—you probably already knew that. Well, I found this book written by Helius Avery, who wrote a book that's really important to the craft of potions-making, and got it signed for Severus and gave it to him for Christmas, but I'd written a note in it, too. And it was basically, 'Thank you for asking me to fill this job and thank you for being more honest, and you've actually ended up meaning a lot to me now that you're not acting like a prat anymore,' I mean that was the basic summary of it. And he didn't comment on it. Instead, he acted really cold and basically kicked him out of his room—"

"That's a shock," Ginny mumbled, but was still in her listening position, so Hermione ignored it.

"But it made me really upset, so when he came back to my room to give me a bottle I'd forgotten in his—oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, he gave me some little bottles for Christmas, for potions—but I was so mad that I took it and then steamed over it for a few seconds until I went out into the hallway. And I'm not sure what made me do it except that maybe I'd been wanting to subconsciously for a while, ever since the night of the dream, maybe—but I kissed him. And he kissed me back."

Hermione took a deep breath and sighed a large, heavy sigh. She'd shut her eyes at some point to force herself to get out everything, and she cracked them open to see Ginny's reaction. Her jaw had dropped, her mouth hanging open, and her eyes were as wide as Hermione thought they could go.

"I know. You have no idea how hard it was to tell you. But it was so weird to _not _tell anyone after it happened. I had to deal with the aftershock all by myself, and it was just really hard to do on my own."

"Bloody _hell_," Ginny shook her head. "I mean, of all people, _Snape_? The same one who made you cry more than once? Didn't he call you a brat sometime?"

"An insufferable know-it-all, and a stupid girl in my third year, too, actually," Hermione waved her hand. "But we've talked about that. There's more, Ginny."

"I'm all ears, although seriously doubting your judgement. As a friend," she said, leaning forward again; Hermione rolled her eyes, but continued.

"We decided we would take some time to think about how we felt, where we wanted to go with it if we still did, but that night I woke up at five in the morning and walked by his room and the door was open, so I went in. And we talked—" she left out the part about his scars, because she didn't really want anyone to know about that much of him, like a piece of him she could keep to herself, "and he kissed me, and then after we went to breakfast, he asked if I wanted to go out for dinner."

"Just to confirm," Ginny interrupted. "We're talking about the same person, right? Potions professor?"

"How many times will this come up? _Yes_, the same man."

"I just want to make sure! Keep going. This is strangely fascinating."

"Thanks, I suppose? Anyway, we went out and he was horrid to our waiter and I confronted him afterward about it, and we decided we still wanted to try—this, us—out, and so we ended the date on a good note, a kiss, and that was it for about a week."

"And then...?"

It was then that Hermione walked over to the table and sat next to Ginny, putting her face in her hands. Ginny was nice enough to wait for Hermione to speak first.

"Last night, I had another one of those dreams, and I woke up, and went to his room, and I—okay, I just needed someone, but also I wanted some affirmation of my feelings, of what I perceived us to have between us, and—"

"You slept together," said Ginny quietly, breathlessly, as if this is what she'd wanted to hear the whole time. And knowing her penchant for good stories, it probably was, despite how she felt about Severus Snape.

"Yes, but you can't tell _anyone_, seriously!" She lifted her head and looked at Ginny, her face hotter than what she imagined Dante's _Inferno_'s version of Hell to feel like.

"I can't believe you'd even think I would!" Ginny said. "I really just can't believe all this happened in, what, three weeks?" She wiggled her eyebrows. "Was it good?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I never would have thought about it—" a shiver danced down her spine as she remembered how he'd touched her, "with him, like you said, but...well, I don't know. He's very complex, much more than he lets on. I've seen so much of him that I never even knew existed, and I still feel like I'm barely scratching the surface."

"You don't regret anything, do you? I remember you coming to me when you regretted your kiss with Viktor Krum right after it happened, after all."

"Well, that was different," Hermione said simply before sighing. She found a range of emotions fluttering through her mind but couldn't find regret amongst them. "I don't think so. It was going to happen. I think I'm more afraid _he _regrets it."

"Then you need to talk to him about it. What are you still doing here with me? Go!"

Ginny hopped off the table and Hermione followed suit.

"So you're not...I dunno, disapproving?"

"Do you really care about my approval?" Ginny said, then smiled. "You're capable of making your own decisions. You know a side of him the rest of us don't, so I can't really judge you for it or anything. And even though my brother will at first, I'm sure, he'll realise it eventually. I'm not so sure about Harry."

"Well, I don't plan on telling either of them yet. This was enough of an emotional toll on me, and that's with you being so accepting."

Ginny laughed.

"Go talk to Snape. I'm off to bed—I just rode a train for seven hours, you know."

"Right. Sorry."

"No, no, I'm happy to hear about your sordid affair," Ginny said before hugging Hermione. "It's good to be back."

Hermione headed back to the dungeons, mind spinning with the entirety of the conversation with Ginny just now. She would talk to Severus, assess the situation with him, and decide on a course of action. It was a good plan, and though Hermione's history was wrought with plans gone awry, she saw no obvious problems with this one, except one: Severus's willingness, or lack thereof, to speak of their actions. But she'd done it once, and felt comfortable in feeling as though she could do it again. After all, at one time she thought getting close to him to be impossible, and he certainly had disproved her then. She hoped for the same now.

-o-

**(A/N: **Well, like I said, the 'M' part of this fic happens fast here in chapter 9. I hope you enjoyed it! I was actually really nervous about posting it. Don't worry...there's more on the way. Let me know how you liked it, didn't like it, or whatnot. Thanks for reading—if all goes according to plan, I'll have the next chapter out really soon.**)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Severus stared at his reflection in the mirror, his clothes gripped in his left hand, his right propping him up as he leaned forward on the counter. Drops of water littered his shoulders and as he looked at himself he tried to see what she could possibly get out of going to him in the middle of the night for comfort or reaffirmation of her human condition or whatever it had been—but he did know that the hot water on his back made him realise she'd left marks of her own, and he turned around, peering over his shoulder in the mirror to see. Ten half-moon shapes winged his back, and looking at them brought back the memory of the sensation of her around him, of her legs squeezing his sides, the taste of her salty skin.

He shook his head and dressed. Perhaps she'd been half-asleep when she came into his room but the fact of her coming to him in the first place was enough to make him feel marginally better about the whole situation. It wasn't so much that he felt bad about it, but something left a strange taste in his mouth about the whole thing. It was most likely his own insecurities and their lack of meaningful communication that caused the unease stirring in him, but it was unfamiliar territory for both, and neither knew how to navigate it properly.

Severus hadn't gone to breakfast, which in and of itself was strange, but also meant at least one person was bound to notice their simultaneous absence—but he'd already thought of that and had his answer planned.

He dressed and walked to the Great Hall with Hermione, discussing relatively trivial things, though he felt a strange twinge in his gut when she made a small squeal at his mention of assigning her the job of creating a lesson plan for February—what was _that _supposed to mean? Additionally, he sensed he wasn't the only one hyper-aware of their actions at breakfast; she sat a little straighter, and as he noted the rise and fall of her chest and the way her fingers curved around her goblet and the small contact they had at the elbows, he realised she was most likely making mental notes of the goings-on around her, especially regarding him. He almost asked if she wanted to talk, but decided at the last minute to wait until they were alone.

But even then, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Maybe she didn't want to talk about it, and he shouldn't force the issue. He'd already come a long way in opening himself to her—something he hadn't even realised she was doing to him until it was too late and exploded into what happened the night before—so maybe she needed time to open herself to him more, if the note in the book hadn't been enough for her. So they busied themselves with their activities throughout the rest of the day until dinner, where they sat awkwardly again.

This wasn't how he'd envisioned any kind of 'day after' when he'd allowed his mind to stray to inappropriate places before—which, admittedly, he had _not _allowed very often. She kept fidgeting and it drove him crazy because he thought of nothing but her body shifting and undulating last night and he finally asked what was wrong, to which she'd replied with a blatant lie. He decided prodding her for the truth wasn't worth it; maybe she was merely expressing some sort of pent-up energy he'd long learned to control, undoubtedly part of his exercises from being involved with Death Eaters—and it was with that line of thought that caused him to delve into more of the 'why's.

Why, when Hermione knew at least an overview of his involvement there—he hoped she would never grow curious about details of that part of his life, but knowing her, she would—did she want to be with him? Why had she come to trust him, much less open herself to him in almost all senses of the word? Maybe she was asking herself these things and that was why she left almost immediately after McGonagall dismissed the first dinner of spring term.

With that, he decided that talking to her would be necessary if they were to continue any semblance of natural—at least, more natural—relationship not only romantically, a word that seemed foreign to Severus, but also professionally, and so he vowed to approach her when he returned to the dungeons. Maybe it wouldn't clear up all the nuances of his feelings for and about her, but it was better than this awkward small talk.

But before he could get the chance to catch up to her, McGonagall engaged him in conversation.

"I wanted to talk to you about the spring term and your plans for Hermione's position. As I know you know, this is the time to really get her to practice and get adjusted to teaching. Her evaluation will be at the end of April so not only will she have all of May to teach entirely on her own, but you will begin your own assumption of duties as Deputy Headmaster."

He swallowed his annoyance and assumed his usual persona. "I told her to work on a lesson plan for February and I'll go over it with her tomorrow after classes end. She was working ever so diligently on it all afternoon. If we have time tonight, I'll map out a tentative schedule for the rest of her teaching hours. It may have to be tomorrow, depending on what progress she's made."

"Excellent. That reminds me, I noticed neither of you were at breakfast. Is everything all right regarding you two?"

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," he lied. "But of course. I was busy with last-minute preparations for the spring term and didn't notice the time until it was almost lunch. I assumed she just overslept, whether purposefully or not, I don't know."

"Ah, well of course that's fine. I was simply checking in. What I meant was because of your...history with discrepancies in two equally as stubbornly-set opinions, I hoped such a scenario wasn't the case of today, especially with the start of term."

"Not at all. Actually, we've settled a few sour feelings left from her days as a student."

"That's excellent to hear."

A rare smile flashed at the corners of her eyes and he thought back to their conversation earlier in the month which had ended with her telling him, "it's okay for someone to mean something to you." He felt irrationally angry, almost as though he felt she was smug about possibly predicting something when she really had no idea what this entailed. But the feeling passed quickly, and he hurried to excuse himself from this seemingly unnecessary conversation.

"Well, if you don't mind, I still haven't finished everything that must be done for tomorrow, so I ought to tend to them."

"Of course; as do I. Have a good evening."

"You as well."

He returned to the dungeons to be met with disappointment, for Hermione was still gone. Once again, he was acutely aware of her absence now, the whole area feeling vaguely empty without her. He settled into reading more of the Avery book, but as more time passed the less he was able to hold his concentration. He'd only gotten twenty-five pages further when he decided he'd read page 478 for twenty minutes too long, and marked his page, closed the book, and leaned forward on his elbows. He pressed his thumb and middle finger against his temples and shut his eyes. Evaluating his feelings and doubting himself and her and dealing with expectations and noticing her absence were all too exhausting. Why had he allowed himself to fall into this?

A light knock fell on his open doorframe and he didn't have to lift his head to know she'd stepped into his room once again without spoken invitation, as he let her scent drift over him. He leaned back in his chair then, looking up at her as he folded his hands over his stomach.

"You want to talk too, don't you?" she asked.

"Am I now that easy to read?"

"I'm just used to you now," she said with the slightest of smiles. He sighed; things like that whisper of a smile and the lilt of her voice weren't helping.

"Then what do you read my question to be?"

"You probably have as many as I do," she crossed to the armchair, leaning against the arm of it—a habit of hers. "First and foremost: do we regret last night?"

"Do you?" he deferred.

"That's unfair."

"Why? You're the one who came to my room."

She grabbed her bottom lip between her teeth for a second before responding.

"I don't," she finally said. "I'd only regret it if you did."

She was implying a question, and he knew _she _knew he was too smart to not pick up on it.

"I've felt much the same," he stood then, crossing to the side of the desk that faced her and leaned back on it, his hands on the edges. "I've thought of many things regarding it, but regret has never been a word I've been attached to when I've thought of last night. I considered whether or not I did, but if you don't, then I don't."

He narrowed his eyes, his gaze drifting unintentionally to her legs, clad in black slacks, as he wondered just when he'd become so dependent on the feelings of another person.

"The more I think about it, maybe it was better that it happened the way it did," he said slowly, still working out the words in his head.

"Because of a decreased chance of insecurities and holding back?" she said, her eyes alight. He felt a now-familiar twist in his gut. He was feeling a decreased chance of insecurities and holding back the more they talked about this.

"Precisely."

"You look like you have more to say."

"I'm still just curious as to your willingness to this whole situation after knowing my past and a general idea of the things I've done."

He felt immediately vulnerable for admitting such a thing—why had he? Letting down one of the few guards he had left was dangerous. She raised her eyebrows, appearing genuinely surprised by this line of questioning.

"It's not as though you still do them," she finally said. "It would be different if you did. But you're a good person, and you've proven your loyalty. I'm surprised you were still concerned about this in the first place."

"Well, now I know not to be, if you say so." He stood and she did the same.

"So, now for the obvious question: where do we go from here?" She moved closer.

"We could try to take it slow," he said, though every nerve in his body wanted nothing more than to feel her beneath them.

"We could," she said, tilting her head while now standing almost pressed against him, "but do you want to?"

"Do you?"

"I don't think we should try to dictate where it goes and when it goes," she said and smiled as he placed his hands on her upper arms. "We're adults; it can go naturally as it will."

"Yes," he said before they kissed; he wasn't sure who'd initiated it and he didn't care.

Her hands came up to press against his upper back, and he squeezed her arms. He was surprised—and pleased—to feel her matching the intensity of the kiss, and he found the way they yearned for the physical affirmation of their discussion and decisions and now-overlying tensions in the way she moved against him almost impatiently and the way he pushed breath out through his nose because he didn't want to stop kissing her anytime soon all very, for lack of a better word, _nice_. His hands dragged down her back and pressed against the small of her back, pressing her hips against his; _her_ hands found the clasp on the front of his robes and unfastened it, shoving them off.

"Do you have any idea how much I've been thinking of this?" he mumbled against her mouth, more to himself than anything.

"I hope as much as I have," she said and he felt her smile.

"Is the classroom door locked?" He pulled her jumper up over her head and began kissing down her neck.

"Of course. Who visits the Potions classroom-area of the dungeons at eleven at night anyway?" His fingers glided over her skin, trying to memorise the feel of her shoulder blades.

"I can't have any second-years stealing ingredients tonight," he said before sucking lightly against her collarbone; she laughed softly as he pushed her back toward the bed.

Her hands carded through his hair and his fingers worked on unclasping her bra, and while he vowed to himself to go about this more slowly this time, now that they were definitely more awake than they'd been last night, it was difficult; he was able to see her in full light now, her nipples a dusky rose against her golden skin, and he was able to follow his hands as they traced the curves of her waist and hips after she shimmied out of her slacks. All day he'd been acutely aware of her slightest movements and touch, and now was no different—he relished in the way she sighed against him as he slipped a hand beneath her knickers, his other pressing against the small of her back, keeping her standing. He was hyper-aware of the small whimpers she made which stretched into faster-paced moans before she came, and then he was kissing her and she was moaning againsthim and he was sliding off her knickers.

He pushed her to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and kneeled down, looking up at her face quickly. Her eyes were half-lidded and her mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling fast. She said "Severus," in a throaty half-whisper and that was all the encouragement he needed. He pushed apart her thighs, hoisted her legs up over his shoulders and then kissed the very centre of her. She made a strange whining sort of noise as he slid his tongue over her, flicking and sucking and meeting her hips' undulations, his hands gripping her thighs and hers tugging on his hair until her legs trembled and she cried out, quite loudly, but he didn't lose pace until she'd ridden out her orgasm.

He stood, shedding the rest of his own clothes; she sat up and moved back to have more room, and he sat back against the headboard, holding his hand out for her to come forward. She did, straddling his legs before moving to settle herself on him, lowering herself slowly, torturously.

"Oh, god," he groaned as she squeezed around him and began slowly moving before capturing his lips in a kiss.

He wanted to prolong it, to extend the feeling of her around him, of her breasts against his chest and her legs squeezing his thighs, of the scent of her musk mixed with the scent of her hair curtaining around him and the feel of her breath hot on his ear as she broke the kiss and let her head fall forward and the way her breath hitched in her chest. But it was all too much for his senses to handle and as she whispered, "Don't hold back," he felt all coherent thought spiral out from his mind as he felt a tightening deep in his stomach. He dragged his hands, which had been ghosting along her back, along her skin, digging into it as he moaned her name and let his orgasm wash over him, coming in waves of delicious pleasure and his vision went black and then he was struggling to open his eyes as he felt her fingers brushing his damp hair back from his face covered in a sheen of sweat.

She was smiling widely at him but didn't make any attempt to move, instead cupping his face and leaning forward to kiss him again, this time slowly and tenderly. He still wasn't entirely sure how to kiss like that, not when his body's desires were tumultuous, but tried not to over-think it and just move naturally and she seemed pleased enough when she pulled back and moved off of him. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them before resting her cheek on the tops of them, looking at him.

"What?" He was still trying to figure out how to breathe normally and think coherently again.

"Thinking about a lot of things."

"I'm not sure why I asked." His mind felt clearer, and with the fog rolling away, he remembered his conversation with McGonagall earlier—quite the euphoria-killer, but something that needed to be addressed. "I was supposed to discuss your lesson plan with you if you've finished. I only just remembered."

"_That's _what you think about at a moment like this?" She lifted her head but she already looked excited; he could practically see her mind whirling—had he gotten to know her that well? Was it even possible to know somebody that well? Then again, she'd phrased it as "getting used to" him...perhaps that's all this was.

"I actually finished February's tentative lesson plan, but I wanted to ask you something!" She exclaimed before standing, grabbing Severus's dressing gown—the one she'd first seen after having her first nightmare when he'd stood in her bathroom and invited her into his room for tea—off the back of the armchair. She tied it tightly around herself and hurried off toward the classroom. He tugged the sheets up to his waist, heard her rummaging around, and she returned with a roll of parchment at least two feet long, which she tossed onto the bed before sitting next to him. She was on her knees and straightening the parchment then turning it right-side up. Stretched across was a large calendar of February with boxes large enough for her small, neat cursive to detail the day's lesson plans for each class year. If he were to be perfectly honest with himself, it was somewhat overwhelming to look at all at once.

"I've got a couple of things up in question toward the end of the month, and I'll give you some time to look over this on your own time—" as if his moments 'on his own time' wouldn't be spent mostly on puzzling out this whole situation with her even after they'd talked about it, "—but I wanted to put an idea out for consideration."

The switch from sensual and carnal and physically mature to professional and orderly and intellectually and organisationally high beyond her peers was startlingly fast, and he saw these parts of her merging yet separate still and he found his gaze wandering from the filled boxes on the parchment to the sliver of skin showing where the dressing gown, loosening through movement, folded over on her chest.

"Anyway, the idea I had was if we combined lessons at some point in a week, like say in March or even April, finished a week early, and then offered to teach one more potion—some sort of more advanced potion than whatever year the students are in—which they could then make for extra credit on the final? Of course, with fifth-years and seventh-years this would have to be foregone because of the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, but I thought I would throw the idea out and gauge your reaction."

"I don't like the idea of 'extra credit,'" he said abruptly. "It complicates things. It gives students a false sense of security. They get even more self-assured and think they don't have to do the work others are putting into learning something valuable and important. Then, if they do the extra credit work, they are allowed a free pass to a grade they never earned along the way."

She frowned.

"I think you're being overly pessimistic about it."

"You expected otherwise? I consider it to be realistic, not pessimistic."

She stood, placing her hands on her hips; _how girlish,_ he thought with a slight shake of the head.

"Excuse me? You think I'm not a realist?" her voice was gaining an edge. "I thought you knew me better than that by now, _Professor_."

His face didn't change expression; he decided to let her go ahead with whatever she was going to go on about. It was the same dance they'd danced for years, even if the air crackled with more electricity than before.

"I thought of that, what you said, and that's why it's not going to be disproportionally inconsistent with the rest of the assignments for the year. It's supplementary and completely optional!" Red was blossoming over her face. "It's not a 'free pass' and I'm honestly quite insulted that you thought I wouldn't consider all of the things you said."

"Then you're insulted at something I never thought," he said, though he knew it would fall on deaf ears. She continued, though perhaps she _had _listened to him; her voice was softer—though certainly not _quiet_.

"The incentive isn't for grades. It really makes so little a difference in their final evaluations that there's almost no reason to call it extra credit. The real motive is to give the students who like to learn the opportunity to do so beyond what they regularly get. Maybe it would spark their interest more. The allure of doing something 'beyond' one's year level or recommended level is probably one a lot of students would like to challenge! Plus, it mixes things up, brings some variety to the usual and also gives you—us—a chance to see who some of the brighter students might be if they don't speak up in class because of intimidation—" she arched her eyebrows at him, "—or for whatever other reason."

He regarded her carefully, mulling her argument over in his mind. She certainly made a cause—a passionate one—for her idea.

"It's just a suggestion, anyway," she said, and leaned over, rolling up the parchment again. It was hard to believe she'd been heatedly arguing a second ago. "If you want to think about it, that's fine. I just want anything _but _for you to dismiss it without some kind of thought to it."

"Part of my concern," he finally said, "is that it would bring more like Alec Dawson out of the woodwork, believing the credit could be more than would save them."

"But you have to put in more cautious work to even get the credit," she pointed out. "I think then they'll realise it's not a giveaway."

Her face softened.

"You disregard things too quickly," she said, "and I think it often ends up hurting you more than you let on sometimes."

"Don't think you know me that well just yet," he snapped.

She cocked an eyebrow and a hip, and let a lopsided smile play on her lips.

"I don't pretend to know you at all, Severus Snape. I only work with what I'm given."

He stared at her, standing in front of him wearing _his _dressing gown—and he briefly the way the fabric fell on her curves—, one hand on her hip and the other holding the rolled-up parchment, and he replayed the way his name had rolled off her tongue just then and how it had rolled off her tongue moments ago when her body moved against his, but before he could think of more, she walked away, placed the parchment on his desk, and began gathering her clothes.

"I'll return the robe in the morning," she said over her shoulder as she picked up her jumper. "But I'm going to bed now. See you bright and early!"

And with that she was out of his room, closing the door behind her, and he stared after her. School started back the next day, and he needed his rest...so why couldn't he go to sleep immediately? Had her absence—yet again— left a weight on his chest, or was it just mild anxiety for beginning his last teaching term the next day?

Try as he might, Severus Snape wasn't sure even _he _knew himself, at least not after all of this started. And he wasn't sure if he was angry with her for forcing him to think about these sorts of things or with himself for allowing her to do this to him. What he did know is that he could never get tired of the way she sighed and shifted and shivered against him, and that scared him more than anything else.

-o-

**(A/N: **Well I don't feel A+ about this chapter but by the end I just wanted to publish it! So here goes nothing, I suppose. Snape is a really hard character to write, and constantly I question my sanity in having undergone this task. But your support and kind words and holy crap I have a ton of story alerts on this—they all keep me going! So thank you, as always.**)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"I want to know how many scars you have, and memorize the shape of your tongue. I want to climb the curve in your lower back and count your vertebrae, your ribs, your fingers, and your goosebumps. I want to be fluent in your body language. I want you, entire."¹

-o-

Starting off the new term feeling invisible grains of sand behind his eyelids was not the way Severus wanted to go about things. He hadn't been able to sleep until late, as in three o'clock or thereabouts, and when he finally did fall asleep it was the deepest sleep in quite some time—which led to decreased ability to get out of bed and function well, not to mention the dry eyes.

Which is why, when a knock came at his door fifteen minutes before the Great Hall opened for breakfast, he answered without a smile. He faced a freshly-showered Hermione, cheeks pink and eyes bright, a grin wide across her face.

"I'm returning this," she said, holding up the dressing gown, "though I'm sure it won't be the last time I'll wear it." He didn't move. "Not even a hint of a smile? I see you didn't sleep well. Couldn't stop thinking?"

"I'll put it this way: if you were a student still, I would have already deducted fifty points from Gryffindor."

"First of all, if I were still a student, this whole scenario wouldn't exist; secondly, taking out your problems on students who have little to nothing to do with said problems is the Professor Snape we all know and adore, and funnily enough, I was just wondering if I'd ever see a hint of him firsthand ever again."

"I'm eternally grateful for your added sarcasm, really, but we've got breakfast and an entire day of classes followed by more work before dinner, so we need to go."

"You realise this all could have been avoided if you'd just taken the robe in the first place, right?"

He snatched the robe and tossed it onto his bed before stepping out into the hall, shutting the door hard behind him. Hermione stepped back only enough to let him out, and his body pressed against hers. Neither made any attempt to move.

"'We'...very interesting," she half-smiled.

"'We' as in there's more than one of us in the present. 'We' as in 'us' is not something we need to even hint at being made known right now."

"Again with the doubting me," she shook her head.

"Simply reinforcing. Public isn't really my area of expertise."

"Nor mine," she said. "Especially in a position such as our own. Still, even I have an image to uphold."

"I doubt anybody—if they even spend their time thinking about such things, believes Hermione Granger above basic human...behaviour and desires."

There was that maddening half-grin again.

"So are we going to get a move-on, or what?" she merely replied and turned on her heel, the scent of her hair breezing past.

So they began walking in silence until Severus said, "But you have virtually everything to do with my problems at this point."

"What?" she lightly scoffed.

"You said I take my frustrations out on those who have little to nothing to do with my problems, which I'll admit, however reluctantly, that that can be true. But you're the reason I couldn't sleep."

She laughed, and it further annoyed him—admittedly probably because he was running on so little sleep for the most part.

"Bollocks. If it had bothered you that much, you would have done something about it. My room's unlocked, and at any rate, I know you know how to make a Sleeping Draught, Professor Snape." She teased. "I know you do because it's done wonders on Harry before."

She then stopped suddenly, and he turned to look at her. She had a strange expression thrown across her face, one he couldn't easily read and therefore couldn't guess at.

"I just realised that you almost always prefaced my name with 'Miss,' but never did the same with Harry and Ron as it applied with 'Mr.' Was that perhaps a hint—a shred, maybe—of respect?"

He rolled his eyes.

"Perhaps, but I can assure you it wasn't something I actively pursued as a line of thinking. It was subconscious if anything."

She smiled, made a small noise that indicated lord-knew-what, and continued walking.

The Great Hall was abuzz with chatter and as they took their usual spots to one side of McGonagall instead of separated, she cast sidelong glances.

"You two are—relatively, for your patterns of arrival—late."

"We were arguing over an idea for revision to a lesson plan," said Hermione matter-of-factly; Severus wondered if she'd practised her answer to this observation. It was at least half-true.

"An excellent and promising start to term," McGonagall mused. "A bright outlook, indeed."

"Makes it interesting," said Hermione. "Besides, not-so-secretly, I'm fairly certain I convinced him it's a good idea."

His eyes widened ever so slightly as he wondered at all the possible ways McGonagall could interpret the statement without a clarification; however, if Severus went to, well, clarify, she would be further suspect of them, so he took a bite of toast.

"Oh, I believe it," the older witch shot an amused look over the top of her glasses at Severus. "You've always been persuasive and sure to back up your arguments with careful reasoning."

Thankfully she then returned to eating and Hermione returned to piling food on her plate. Severus just ate silently, trying to process it all. He and Hermione as a single collective still felt extremely surreal, and he suspected it would take more time than either of them thought for it to not be as such.

The day passed smoothly, with Hermione happily handing out papers they'd worked so diligently on grading—including the ones she'd made temporary messes of by ink blots—and assisting otherwise where needed when students made, or attempted to make, potions. Severus made a concentrated effort to not yell at her or strongly discourage her from helping too much—for god's sake, how did they expect to learn if she was _still _holding their hands?—and felt he'd done pretty well in doing so.

What he didn't do so well was keep his eyes off her. He was still human and so he exercised little restraint in noticing the way her long hair fell down her back and his eyes followed the curve of that back leading to her hips and he felt so wound with tension and irritability and frustration, all bubbling under the surface for the entire day, simmering over a fire that started low but grew and grew as the hours ticked away and sometimes it took every ounce of willpower in his very being to keep from grabbing her wrist when she would walk by and doing what every pore in his body screamed to do—but if there was one thing that came with being one of the inner circle of Voldemort's army and spy for Dumbledore's side, it was restraint, and so he held back from the most carnal of desires tearing at him, at least until the end of the day.

It couldn't come soon enough, and when it did, he was sure he'd boil over.

-o-

As soon as the last student filed out of the classroom for the day, the door slammed shut and locked. Hermione looked over at Snape to see him standing behind his desk, his wand pointed at the door.

"Wh—"

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

The tone of his voice and his words brought back memories of the first day last term when he'd cornered her in his office for 'spoon-feeding' the students. Back then, she'd been just a step above student, but now she held more sway over him, and had found her voice. She'd defended herself, but now she was even less afraid to do so, to the point of fearlessness itself. She whirled on her heel and stomped up to face him, trying to not let the almost-spicy scent of him derail the thoughts on the tip of her tongue.

"We've had this argument, and I'm _not _having it again. I can only assume that you haven't found things to yell at me for in quite some time, so this is just your way of taking out your overdue anger or contempt on my 'teaching' style or whatever it is you have, but I'm not going to put up with it."

She turned and started to make her way down the hallway to her room; his footsteps close behind hers echoed like thunderclaps. Halfway down the corridor she stopped and turned.

"You've done nothing but act like a petulant child every time I've tried to help students, yet you never offer any advice other than 'act like an outright arse,' which may work for you, but it doesn't work for everyone, not least of all, me. Now, I suspect there's something else going on with you today—perhaps your lack of sleep, which seems to me to still be primarily _your _faul—"

"Maybe it's because I'm not used to thinking about someone else so constantly when it doesn't involve my life or their life being in danger—or, what's more, talking about it." He finally shouted. "Have you considered that option?"

"So you deal with it by yelling at said object of your thoughts? Brilliant solution! You're at it again!"

"I never said I know what I'm doing when it comes to this! Admitting my weaknesses is yet another thing I'm not used to! At all! It's as much unfamiliar territory to me as this job was to you months ago."

A slew of emotions coursed through her in a split second—shock then relief at his willingness to actually discuss his feelings, then pleasure in the fact that he was 'constantly' thinking of her, then annoyance at his unfair reaction. It was a poor excuse for him to use.

"Did _you _ever consider that you're not the only one in 'unfamiliar territory' with this? I'm sleeping with a man who was my professor just six months ago." She threw her hands up exasperatedly. "Even if he weren't, I've never had a relationship long enough to have things miraculously figured out. I was just as ill-prepared for this as you were. There's not even a book on it! I would know—I've looked."

She stepped closer. There was almost crackling in the air from the tension.

"I haven't even told my best friends. They have no real, accurate idea of what's going on in my life right now. Do you know how that feels?"

"At least you have people to go to."

"And whose fault is it that you don't? Open up to someone! Professor McGonagall—oh, hell, Minerva—would probably be delighted if you talked to her about something other than work since you two are about to start working in tandem together to run the school. You want to have a better relationship with those you work with closely, don't you? Of course, because that's why we're here."

"I doubt she'd be delighted about this relationship."

"I doubt she'd be surprised." She countered.

There was a long silence while he seemed to be rolling around in his mind what she'd said; she grew impatient and started to say, "So, are you going to tell me what's _really _botheri—" but that's as far as she was able to get because then his lips were on hers in a bruising kiss, his fingers clenching fistfuls of her jumper beneath her robes as he pushed her hard against the wall. She was confused to experience a man like Severus Snape, whose moments were usually so calculated and bodily responses cautious even in the midst of intimacy, losing that tenuous grasp on control. But it also deeply intrigued her; this was an entirely new learning experience after all, she thought as she unclasped her robes and shrugged them off, and one not need wonder over whether Hermione Granger liked those or not.

His teeth pulled at her lower lip, his hand squeezed her breast, and he shoved his knee between her thighs, pushing it up against her. She moaned as he moved to kissing her neck, tonguing her jawline and around the shell of her ear before travelling down her neck again to bite her collarbone. Her hips moved of their own accord, her skirt bunched up at her waist, and she reached forward to free him from his trousers. He lowered his knee and she scrambled out of her knickers, stepping out of them and her shoes deftly before he jammed his knee between her thighs again. A finger teased her entrance before he pushed in with two, then three fingers all maddeningly slowly, moving at a pace that was near-torture for both of them.

"Would you get on with it," she hissed, threading her fingers through his hair and tugging lightly to drive the point home.

"Get on with what?" he growled in a voice lower than she'd ever heard from him, his hot breath cocooning her ear. "Do you want me to fuck you, Hermione? Is that it?"

There was something about the raw carnality of the word 'fuck' coming from someone as uptight and calculated as Severus Snape, even more when used in that question, that almost sent her over the edge then and there, and her fist tightened, pulling harder on his hair as she yanked his head down to whisper in _his _ear, "Didn't I say 'don't hold back' last time?"

That was all he needed; he pulled his fingers out of her and, hands on her bottom, hoisted her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist and he pushed into her hard; she dug the fingernails of her other hand into the back of his neck and tugged on his hair. She'd felt it all day too, the coiling of tension in the pit of her stomach that tightened anytime she felt his eyes on her or walked by his desk where he sat for most of the day, and now they weren't backing away from the unfamiliar territory they'd admitted to being surrounded by, and she quelled her thoughts and let her mind fill with the sensations of him being rough with her, the cold hard stone of the wall against her back, the wetness of the kisses he was dropping on her neck and the feel of his teeth as he bit down on her now-exposed shoulder (how had that happened? It didn't matter to her), the shuddering groan of her name as he came, and with more urging, the feel of her own orgasm as it crested and washed over her, her consciousness ebbing then returning as he pressed his forehead against hers, his hands still beneath her thighs. She made a noise in her throat and he set her down, though she had to lean against the wall for a few moments more as she gathered herself.

"I don't usually say things like that," he said as he deftly buttoned his trousers again, pushing his hair out of his face.

"I've noticed," she said, attempting to smooth down her hair, which was an effort in vain until she retrieved a hairbrush. "It certainly wasn't a bad thing, though."

His eyes met hers ever so briefly and if she'd blinked she might have missed his smirk.

"Are we going to always deal with arguments with sex? That might be unhealthy in the future." She asked as she walked into her room to retrieve fresh, non-ripped clothes.

"It's still early on, so I doubt it." He stood in her open doorway, watching as she changed. She was aware of it, but didn't acknowledge it. "I still have trouble believing this sometimes."

"How do you think I feel?" she turned and leaned back against her chest of drawers, folding her arms over her chest. "Sometimes with the way you say things you still have the ability to make me feel like I'm as foolish as a little girl again."

"I'd apologise but don't really feel the need. It's to be expected of me at this point, I'm sure."

She felt a flash of annoyance dance through her. Be it like him to be unwilling to change for the better even a little bit.

"Whatever you say, I suppose."

He crossed the room to her but before anything else came of it, a rapping at the office door alerted them both to the fact that the door was still closed and locked—and, in her mind logic pointed toward that raising suspicion for any student, or even worse, professor, who came to speak with either of them. They walked out and opened the door to find nobody there but the sound of fluttering wings, growing fainter with each second. Hermione looked down and spotted a letter folded and addressed to her on parchment lying on the floor. She unfolded it and a smile spread across her face. It was from Harry and Ron, and they were going to be in Hogsmeade for dinner and expected her there at seven.

"I'll be going to the Three Broomsticks for dinner tonight," she said, turning around to face Severus. "Maybe we can talk about lesson plans without getting furious with one another now until I have to leave." _Maybe it'll help me—somehow—come up with a way to tell Harry and Ron about us, _she thought with a small frown.

"We can certainly try."

-o-

At ten-to-seven, Hermione set out from a particularly successful session of chatting about Work Things with Severus to meet Harry and Ron. As she trudged through a light layer of snow, she replayed different scenarios of telling them in her head, and all the different ways she _could _tell them. She decided not to settle on one and instead just pick one at random or not even go with a rehearsed one and say whatever came rolling off her tongue.

She arrived at the Three Broomsticks, and stood for a moment, staring at the door, contemplating not telling them tonight at all. But she owed it to them, and hoped Ginny would be right. Even if it took a while, surely they could see that she was mature and far more than capable of making her own decisions and that if she was happy, they shouldn't have an issue with it being her choice. They would probably be more offended that she would be involved with a man who had constantly put them down as students, but there was only one way to find out.

She took a deep breath and walked in, finding them immediately and sitting down.

"Hello, boys," she smiled. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."

-o-

(**A/N: **Uh, so how am I already on chapter 11? This exploded! Anyway, ¹ - a bit of gorgeous writing I found via tumblr from the blog (not on tumblr) of a guy named Chad Wuzzy, so it doesn't belong to me, but I thought it fit pretty perfectly. The lovely Amber planted a little seed of an idea/line for this chapter in my head so I let it do its thing and hope she – and you all – enjoy. I thought I'd mix it up a little this chapter and I really hope it wasn't too OOC. Next up: THE BIG REVEAL...hopefully. I'll try my hardest to get the next chapter out ASAP but I'm in the process of applying for graduate school and therefore having nervous breakdowns quite periodically so no promises on it being before March 13! Hopefully see you before then, though! If not...~*cliffhanger*~)


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

"Uh-oh, that sounds bad," said Harry after ordering a round of butterbeers for the three of them.

"Are we in trouble? Did we forget to write our essays or something?" said Ron with a fake look of worry etched over his face before he burst out laughing a second later. Hermione tried to smile naturally—she didn't need to make this a bigger deal than it was, because then _they _would make it a bigger deal than it was, and that was the last thing she wanted.

"Very funny," she said before taking a long drink of butterbeer, stalling further. "No, it's nothing bad. I want you two to tell me what's been going on with you first, though."

"Well, in that case, let me just—" said Ron before drinking an even larger portion of his butterbeer, slamming the glass down on the table. He leaned back on the back two legs of the chair, grinning widely. "Harry and I are now officially dating lovely young ladies, you'll be proud to know."

"Why would I be proud? You're subjecting someone to...well, _you_, Ron."

He scrunched up his face.

"Uncalled for, Hermione, just rude," he said while Harry shook his head, smiling into his butterbeer. "_Anyway_, they're actually sisters, _and _they both work in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, meaning _we _have inside passes to most if not all major Quidditch games."

"Ron's really thrilled about seeing the Chudley Cannons finally," Harry said, "even though they'll inevitably lose."

"Sisters, huh? So it'll be like when you two went to the Yule Ball with the Patil sisters," Hermione smirked; the boys winced simultaneously. "Oh, I'm sure you won't screw it up. You both seem to really like them...or their Quidditch tickets."

"Yeah, Anna's great," said Harry after downing the rest of his butterbeer, being the first of them to finish his, despite Hermione and Ron's generous gulps. They followed suit, and Hermione ordered the next round.

"Oh, and this bloke got a promotion," Ron jerked his thumb back at Harry, whose smile widened. "He's being modest about it, though."

"That's really wonderful, Harry!" Hermione clinked her glass against Harry's.

"Thanks," he said, something about his smile a little off; she'd always been closer to Harry, able to read him better, and thought perhaps he was worried about any potential strain his promotion could put on his and Ron's friendship, tapping into the feeling of inferiority Ron had often embodied around Harry. She gave him a smile that she hoped conveyed her understanding.

"Well, enough about us," he said, clearing his throat, flashing a grin that seemed to say _Thank you_. "Tell us your news."

"Oh!" she said and quickly guzzled down more large portions of butterbeer. The speed of her drinking made her feel a little woozy—yet less worried about telling them her news. "Well, it's nothing big, really—" _that's a lie, _"but you have to promise to not stop talking to me."

Harry and Ron's brows furrowed respectively, and Ron's eyes narrowed into tiny slits.

"You're quitting. You stole a book from the library and Madam Pince is having you kicked out. You're shagging that awful fifth-year Daniel McCullough. McGonagall is finally—"

"No, Ron, for the love of Merlin, please stop it," Hermione snapped; she would have found his guesses funny if she hadn't been so bloody nervous, but she couldn't stop the churning in her stomach. This was a thousand times worse than telling Ginny.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Snape..._Severus _and I are...er, inarelationshipofsorts." The last words came out in a quiet rush and she immediately brought her glass up to her lips, drowning her nerves and weight of the words in the frothy drink, looking down at it intently until after moments of stunned silence made her look back up at Harry and Ron.

Their faces looked about how she'd pictured when she imagined this situation: both mouths agape, Ron wearing a more indignant version of the look, his eyebrows tilted up more, and with Harry more of a vaguely-sick look. She took another drink, staring at the two of them, somewhat admiring their dedication to their shock.

"Good chat, then," she said. "I suppose if that's that, I should be going."

"No bloody way," said Ron breathlessly. "You're kidding, right? This whole thing was a joke? That's a twisted way of amusing yourself, Hermione."

"No, Ron, it wasn't a joke," she snapped. "Look, just because it's unfathomable to you—"

"Of _course _it's unfathomable to me! To us! He was horrible to us—all of us, have you forgotten? I mean, yeah, you've been going soft for him for a while, but to actually be in a _relationship _with that—with Snape? Have you been Imperio'd? Are you actually loony?"

Ron gestured wildly as he talked, and in the process knocked over Harry's drink; the other busied himself with cleaning it up, before waving over Madam Rosmerta to order more amidst the chaos. Maybe he thought it would calm Ron down—or it would calm himself down. Hermione looked at him for any clue as to his feelings on the matter, but his face held nothing but blankness—and still that vague sickness.

"I can't believe you'd actually go for that, I mean, there are tons of way better wizards out there—we know a guy in the Department, Mum's been trying to convince us to set you two up, actually—but you go for _Snape_? He's nothing but a greasy-haired gi—"

"Enough, already," Hermione slammed a hand down on the table. "I know it's not what you expected and of _course_ I know how he treated us and don't you think I've already talked about that? It's..." she sighed, starting again. "It's been really hard for me to think of how you two would react when I would tell you, but it's been even harder for me to _not _tell you. You're my best friends, and I didn't have anybody to share the happiness I've felt about everything with. We still argue, it isn't perfect, but it's the first time I've ever felt that connected to someone I never thought I could connect to."

She looked at Harry then, her eyebrows knitting with worry.

"Are you going to say anything?"

He raised his eyes to meet hers, ignoring Madam Rosmerta—which was fine, considering she hurried away anyway, apparently sensing the intensity of the situation—when she brought more drinks.

"I don't really have anything to say," he said finally, and she breathed a small sigh of relief as his tone held no hurt or anger—or maybe he was just better at hiding it. That worried her again. "I'm really surprised, but you've always been your own person. I'm sure you see something in him we don't—I'd hope so, anyway. Though it's going to take some time to get used to even the thought...I don't know, it's hard to see how he _could _be that different to you, but...I mean, you're my best friend and I trust you, even if I sort of don't want to with this...situation."

"Are you kidding me?" Ron waved his arms again, but Harry clutched his butterbeer tightly. "I'm the _only _one who's shocked at this? _Really_?"

"No, Ron," Hermione said sternly. "You're the only one making it a _problem_."

"Well, I'm _sorry_ that some of us can't contain our surprise that our friend is doing _things _with someone none of us liked," Ron scoffed, and sat back, folding his arms over his chest.

He didn't move from that position for what seemed to be an eternity until he sat forward, took a drink, and leaned on his elbows. Hermione kept her glare even, watching while Ron's mind worked.

Finally he leaned forward more and folded his fingers beneath his chin.

"So...is he big?"

"RONALD!" Hermione shouted; heads turned but she didn't notice. Her face burned and heat blossomed out to her ears. Harry looked precipitously close to the edge of being sick on the table.

"What? I'm only curious, I mean he's got large feet and maybe that's where a lot of his anger comes from, you know—"

"I refuse to discuss this with you, you—you uncivilised warthog!"

"Me? A warthog! _You're _the one shagging that greasy-haired—"

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY, your mother would be mortified if she heard you right now!"

"My mum's not the one shagging the git! ...I hope she's not, anyway." He shuddered. "I still can't believe _you_ are."

"Oh, my god. I think I've had enough for one night. It's been fun." Hermione shook her head before very quickly drinking the rest of her butterbeer. "I'll leave you two to process everything that happened tonight—I'm sure Ron here will inevitably need more butterbeer. Goodnight."

She grabbed her things and flounced out the door, her face still burning. She felt a strange mixture of relief and embarrassment but defensive, and most of all, completely wiped out. When she returned to the dungeons, she heard _Requiem _floating out from Severus's room but went straight past to hers. She flopped backwards onto the bed and pressed the heels of her palm hard against her closed eyelids, focusing on the patterns of strange swirling colours that played behind her eyelids and not on the fact that she felt she might cry at any second now from the whirlpool of emotions churning inside her. She was so caught up in her own thoughts she'd neglected to hear the cessation of the music.

"This might be a question to which I already know the answer, but how did it go?" asked Severus from the doorway suddenly, jarring her back to reality.

Hermione sat up and leaned back on her hands, fixing him with a stare through the curly lock of hair that had fallen over her face. He was leaning against the doorframe, and walked in without invitation—not, of course, that she minded.

"It could have been worse," she said vaguely. "But it could've been much better, too."

"What?"

"I told them about us...this relationship sort of thing." She mentally noted her preference for referring to them as 'a relationship sort of thing' or 'relationship of sorts.' She bit her lip. "Are you angry with me for that? I mean, I probably would have told them anyway, but I guess I'd just like to know."

He sighed and sat down next to her.

"Not when you're looking at me like that, no," he allowed a corner of his mouth to lift into a half-smile. "And they're your friends, and you're an independent person. What you do in your life is just that—your life."

She sighed. "It's not that I didn't expect this, but I guess I'd hoped for some different kind of reaction. And then Ron, crude as ever—ah, you know, it's done with, they'll get over it and eventually talk to me like they always do again. How was your evening?"

"Must you ask if you already know the answer? Dull, boring, what it was before I had an apprentice who has no qualms about arguing with me—except for, of course, the war."

"Well, I'm certainly happy I make your life not-dull, not-boring, argumentative, and not-war." She pushed up onto her knees and, cupping his head in her hands, kissed him. His arms encircled her, a hand settling between her shoulder blades, fingertips brushing against the nape of her neck, and she sighed against him. Harry and Ron would never understand, not really. Months ago, she wouldn't have understood either.

"Stay here tonight?" she mumbled against his lips. "I know it's only a room away, but I could use the company."

"Funnily enough," he pushed her hair back from her face, raising his eyes to meet hers, "I could too."

And so they changed out of their clothes and settled in for the night. They lay facing each other, Hermione's outer leg tossed over his while he traced patterns on the small of her back, fingers warming up as they danced along her warm skin. She kept thinking of the night he'd touched her for the first time and how his touches were now much less rare—but never less treasured.

"Can I ask you something?" she finally said.

"You've never stopped yourself before." She scrunched up her face, and he smiled. "Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Oh, don't!" she laughed, but quickly grew serious once more. "Back when you touched my scar, and I asked you if you'd ever touched anyone like that and you said—"

"'It's been a long time.' Yes, I remember that all quite vividly."

"Well, I guess I was wondering who that last person was...the one you let get close to you."

His fingers paused before starting their figure-eights again.

"Lily Evans."

Her eyes widened.

"Harry's mother?"

"Mm-hmm. Childhood friends. She went for James—" he made a face, though it was really more of a miniscule twist of his features that quickly passed, "even though to this day, I will never understand just what she saw in him."

"That's it? You're just going to leave it at 'childhood friends'? I don't even get a hint of a back-story?" she replied, only a little genuinely indignant, playing it up. She found him voluntarily opening himself up to her like this fascinating. He sighed softly.

"We became friends long before Hogwarts, but here, she was the only one who would stand up for me. We always worked together many late nights at the library, and she pushed me to put forth my best efforts with schoolwork because she herself did. She challenged me intellectually and interpersonally, not unlike you in that regard. She was the only one I ever even _wanted _to be close with. The depth of our friendship came naturally after so many years together, but of course I never knew her like this," he gave her hip a small squeeze, "even though most of the time, every bit of me wanted to—if, for no other reason, to be completely with her. I guess it makes for some kind of poignant reminder that life isn't always what we plan for it to be."

"If it ever is," she agreed.

"Of course. But, she was the only and the last person I was ever in love with," he said, looking at her then with a strange expression on his face. She couldn't read it, but she knew what she hoped it meant, even if she wasn't sure she could verbalise that hope even inside her mind.

"You'll probably never be fully 'over' her, you know," Hermione said. "At least, I would find it hard to be over somebody if you loved her that much."

"I feel closer as time continues to go by. But, no, I don't know if I'll ever be _truly _over her."

"You never had closure."

Severus visibly swallowed and shifted so he was angled more toward lying on his back, though still with most of his body facing her. "No," he said, his voice thick. "It doesn't matter, though, because things are different now. I should be annoyed you've made me talk about it this much, but—"

"Rubbish. You wouldn't have said anything if you didn't want to. I won't pretend to know all of you, but I feel confident in saying I know that much about you."

He turned back toward her and stared for a minute; her stomach fluttered at the way he looked at her.

"You shouldn't mean this much to me." He said softly.

"What an awful thing," she said dryly, a little offended. "The last thing I want to do is argue with you, but—"

His lips on hers silenced her.

"I never said I wished you didn't, Hermione." He murmured against her mouth.

"The way you say 'Hermione' is so much nicer than 'Miss Granger.'"

"Yes, well, I'm rather fond of the way you say mine too."

"You're really on a roll tonight with being candid," she smiled against his lips before he pressed against her again, his tongue sliding along her lower lip.

She made a soft noise and opened her mouth to him, his hand sliding down her back, pulling her flush against him. She felt his erection against her and dug her heel into his calf, her own hands pressing on his back as he rolled her onto her back, his knee between her thighs. He pulled back and, sitting up, tugged off her shorts and knickers before dropping kisses on her neck, collarbone, chest, and stomach. He slid his fingers inside her and circled her clit with his thumb, and she gasped, always stirring with the feeling of him touching the most intimate parts of her, her hips undulating involuntarily.

Yes, Ron was right. She was shagging him, and she couldn't really bring herself to regret it.

-o-

Once he'd explored her with his fingers, lips and tongue, something he wasn't sure he'd ever grow tired of, he pulled back and grabbed her wrists, pinning them to the bed just above her head with his hands and looked at her face, committing the way her lips, plumped and red from kissing and worrying with her teeth, were parted, her hair fanned out behind her head, her eyes clouded with desire, all to memory, etching it onto his mind so he'd never forget this moment, frozen in time.

Yes, things were so very different, but he didn't know how to go about telling her that he had craved difference, that he hated the stagnation his life had become and that she'd been the perfect end to it all and that he wanted always to hear her footsteps fall on these stone floors and to look at her wrists and their movements as she showed a first-year how to properly stir a cauldron and to watch the myriad of expressions she wore as she read, that that was all he wanted with every sigh, every nerve, every vein, every eyelash. She shifted beneath him then and he was reminded of the pressing need at hand.

"Severus?" she asked, and he answered by kissing her again.

He entered her slowly, releasing her wrists and letting his head fall forward, his hair brushing her shoulder. She made a soft noise, threading her fingers through his hair with one hand, dragging her fingernails up his back with the other. He let his hand reaffirm the soft warmth of her body, squeezing her thigh, her hip, her breast, ghosting along her arm hooked around him, smoothing her hair back from her face which he watched as it contorted in the most beautiful of ways; when she squeezed shut her eyes and moaned "Severus," with her voice low and raw and unrestrained, it opened something in him, like a scab reopened, and he began moving more erratically, seemingly suddenly on the edge, and when her fingernails dug into his back again he shuddered and his orgasm crashed over him, unbidden, and her name rolled off his tongue before he kissed her again—and he wasn't ever sure anything could ever replace the feeling of openness he shared with her.

As they lay trying to get their breathing back to a normal resting pace, limbs still entwined, he thought about how he wanted to tell her this, and all of the things he'd thought tonight but didn't know how to just yet. He was still too new at this, and he'd come a long way to even be able to talk about Lily with her, _especially _with her considering her connection to Potter, but he wasn't somebody who could rid himself of internalising feelings easily.

"I'm really enjoying this staying-over thing so far," she finally mumbled sleepily, half-muffled.

"Yeah," he said, finding it much easier to tell her this way for now. "Yeah, I am too."

-o-

Hermione woke alone but stared, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, at a small slip of paper on the pillow next to hers. She unfolded the note and read, in the writing that had held so many criticisms, corrections, and intellectual insults in her years as a student,

_Meet me on the Astronomy Tower at 9 tonight – I would advise for you to dress warm, and forgo dinner. –S_

She reread it four times to really understood what it said—a risk that came with leaving one a note for when one wakes up—and felt a smile crawl over her face. It sounded almost a little too vague for Severus, but she knew if she asked he'd give the complete opposite of any sort of answer—that is, silence—and so she went the rest of the day without mentioning it once, concentrating on classroom tasks. By nine she felt hungry enough to be a little irritated at the whole thing, but at eight he'd left without a word and she assumed it was still on—whatever 'it' was. She trekked up to the entrance hall, then through two corridors and finally reached the foot of the staircase to the tower, climbing leisurely. She didn't want to seem overly eager while simultaneously _being _overly eager. Finally she reached the top.

She stepped outside into the crisp night—though Severus had chosen a good day to do this, for the temperature was high enough to be mistaken for an early springtime evening instead of early January, a fluke of a phenomenon in Scotland—and stared, her lips parted in a gasp, at the sight before her. Severus stood by a small table, on which were two lit candles and two plates of food.

"I figured since I embarrassed you last time, I could make it up to you with a private date, without the possibility of idiot waiters. And the Astronomy Tower seems to be popular with students on their...romantic endeavours," he pulled a face, "if the sheer number of couples I've caught up here are any indication."

"I can see it now," she said once her breath returned, walking toward the setting. "Severus Snape, watching and waiting in the shadows for the perfect opportunity—two students, in love or at least in lust, running up to the Astronomy Tower for a nice night alone beneath the stars...until he barges in out here and deducts one hundred points from their House or Houses and assigns detention for two weeks."

"Usually three weeks."

"I once came up here at midnight for something extremely scandalous and rule-breaking," she mused as she reached him, smiling and cocking her head, "and it was just my first year."

"Extremely rule-breaking? As if your other rule-breaking adventures were less severe?"

"Well, I never snuck a dragon out of a castle in my other 'rule-breaking adventures', so I'd say yes, in general, they were. Maybe except for following Quirrell down to the third-floor corridor and all the rules we broke there—that was pretty big. At least for first year."

He shook his head. "Let's eat, before the food goes cold. You can tell me all about your exploits over dinner if you like."

"So you can assign me retroactive detention?"

"Maybe just make you grade more tests." He smirked as they sat.

"Oh, what an awful, daunting task!" she exclaimed as she began cutting her food. "It's not as though I've ever done that before."

They chatted lightly over their late dinner, mostly Hermione asking questions about just how long he'd been planning this, was this the same as tonight's dinner in the Great Hall and wouldn't their absence from dinner then be completely suspicious, and had he remembered to lock the door behind her, because she hadn't, and what if someone looked up and could see them over the parapet, or there happened to be a Charlie Weasley-esque broomstick rider who needed to help first-years transfer an illegal dragon to him and the only place they knew to meet was the Astronomy Tower? However, she remembered to look at him and smile every few minutes without talking, because the entire gesture was certainly something special.

After dessert, they stood and discussed constellations for a short time, but Hermione mostly thought about how she liked the pressure of his arm resting against hers as they stood side-by-side at the parapet. Then he looked over at her.

"Thank you, by the way."

"For what?"

"For making the first move for me to eventually completely move on from Lily," he cleared his throat then and looked back up at the sky. She could tell it was hard for him to acknowledge it all again. "You've been of more help to me than I ever envisioned when I asked you to take on this apprenticeship."

"I certainly didn't plan on it," she said with a smile, "but you don't have to thank me."

"Mm." He nodded. "Well, then, shall we go?"

With a flick of his wand, the table, chairs, and plates were all gone, leaving no trace of anybody having been here and they turned to leave, his hand on the small of her back as they walked to the door. When they opened the door, they found Ginny standing just in front, wand raised to presumably attempt to unlock it. Hermione's eyes widened and Ginny swallowed visibly, her eyes glittering with suppressed amusement (though obviously not suppressed enough). Severus still didn't know Hermione had told Ginny about them, and she didn't feel the need to tell him just yet.

"Oh, good evening, Professor, ...Hermione," said Ginny slowly. "I was just making rounds." She gestured to the Head Girl badge on the front of her robes. "I didn't realize—"

"Hermione and I got a report from a Slytherin who thought somebody was up here," said Snape coolly; Hermione noted the pressure of his hand still on her back. "We investigated, so unless someone's got another Invisibility Cloak, it seems clear."

Ginny smiled, letting the amusement play on her face. "Excellent, thanks. I received the same report, actually. I should have known you two would be on top of it."

"Goodnight, Ginny," said Hermione pointedly, and Ginny stepped aside with a giggle so soft Hermione was sure Severus didn't hear.

Once they were back in the entrance hall and headed toward the dungeons, Hermione whispered, "Did you have that story ready the whole time?"

"Only in the case of another professor, Filch, or Head Boy or Girl," said Severus with a lilt of satisfaction in his voice. "Of course, had it been a student, I would have said they were the one we received a warning about and then deducted House points and assigned detention accordingly. Easy, really."

"You're quite the role model," Hermione said with a smirk.

"Slytherin," he shrugged.

"Right, we mustn't forget."

When they arrived at the dungeons she turned around in the bedroom hallway and grasped the front of his robes before kissing him slowly, deeply.

"So, if I may ask," she said as she pulled back, "what got into you? Where did this romantic gesture come from? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved it, but it's not something I really expected from you."

"I just wanted to do something...nice," he said, finding her hand and entwining his fingers with hers—another action she found surprising, though she wasn't sure why. After the conversation about Lily—no, since the kiss—more walls were slowly coming down and shattering, one after another. "Something I thought you would like. The timing was just luck. And I wanted to salvage my dignity a little bit from that first 'date'."

She giggled. "Thank you. It meant a lot to me, Severus." She watched as something changed in his eyes; an expression morphing into another, all in densely-dark brown circles. "Now, are you ever going to finish the Avery book? I'm dying to know your thoughts on it so I can argue with them!"

She tugged on his clothes, pulling him against her, and his head dipped down to graze his lips across her earlobe, sending goosebumps down her body.

"All in due time," he said softly. "I've got quite a few distractions, if you hadn't noticed."

-o-

The next few days passed quickly and mostly without incident, aside from one row regarding Hermione's idea to change the lesson plans again, which resulted in Hermione pointedly not talking to him for four hours, during which time he got a considerable amount of Avery reading in. Then, at Friday's lunch, Minerva asked him to meet with her after dinner regarding an 'orientation' of sorts for the position he was to take in September. Once he sat down in her office, she shut the door and cast a Silencing Charm on it. He frowned. These were particularly strong security measures for a job run-down.

But what came from her wasn't anything related to the job.

"I'm certain it's because you're both unfamiliar with the territory and thereby terrible at disguising anything of the sort," said Minerva, folding her hands in front of her, as if she already knew the answer, "but there's something going on with you and Hermione, isn't there?"

-o-

**(A/N: **GASP! WHAT WILL HAPPEN! STAY TUNED FOR MORE! ...nah, this is probably a crappy attempt at a cliffhanger, and I apologise. I did my best. Hopefully the next chapter will come soon? My grad school application deadline is fast approaching, so maybe the stress will cause the creative juices to flow!**)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Severus pursed his lips. There was really no good way to answer this, was there? He knew, though, that silence spoke more than any words could, so he quickly settled for a safe answer.

"What makes you ask that?"

"Severus." She said, a statement all its own. "I'm quite old and I've seen a lot, especially when it comes to the dance of attraction. It's not as if you're particularly easy to read, but you are not atypical when it comes to the signs I've seen so many times before. Skipping meals aside, because that's never a reliable way of affirming suspicions—especially because I'm sure Hermione visits with her friends often—you've been slowly moving together over time. And I just happened to notice."

He sighed and she continued.

"It's often inevitable, but that coupled with a few nuances in behaviour...well, I've all but gotten your verbal confirmation. I could be wrong, but let me just reiterate—I've been around for quite some time."

Her obvious self-satisfaction annoyed him to no end, but not as much as her being right about it.

"You've already got your answer, then," he said after he let a few minutes tick by in silence.

It was her turn to let minutes pass, and he awaited the blow. _"The promotion is off,"_ he expected her to say. Or, even worse, _"You're fired and you have two hours to get all your stuff and leave the castle"_—something like that. Maybe she'd tell him he would have to fire Hermione, or that he would have to choose between the two and either fire Hermione _or _leave. But she just continued to stare.

"Does your inexhaustible silence mean I'm sacked?"

"Sacked? Why would I fire you? Then I'd have to choose a new Deputy Headmaster, and you'd have to be replaced for just over four months and honestly, I've got enough to do already."

Then she—of all things—smiled. He opened his mouth to begin to explain himself, but she cut him off.

"She really has a way of working under—"

"It's about time, anyway."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, come now," she peered at him over the tops of her glasses. "What did I just say? It's often inevitable. Try as I'm sure you did, you are not the exception this time, Severus."

"I certainly didn't _plan _on this so-called inevitability. As I was about to say, she has a way of working under one's skin."

"She challenges you. That's good."

"She never had qualms about doing that," he remarked dryly. "Sometimes she's infuriating."

"Because she's just like you? Nobody expected your personalities to _not _clash. But remember, you're probably just as challenging for her as she is for you—actually, probably even more so."

"I'm not disagreeing with you," he sighed. This wasn't really something he wanted to discuss at length with her, but found himself doing so anyway. "I often still question why it's like it is, but she shows no signs of changing her mind, so I try not to fixate on it."

"Have you ever known her to reject a challenge?"

"Fair point."

"Look," she leaned forward again, "don't underestimate your worth, Severus, but don't base it solely by others, even Hermione. Ultimately you are responsible for your own happiness."

"Yes, Professor," he said with a pointed smirk.

"As for the technical side of all this," she waved her hand in a sweeping motion, "I need not remind you of the conditions of apprenticeship. It's not something that's encouraged, but luckily for everyone involved, it isn't explicitly against the rules, either. If it were, things might be different—I can't say for sure, of course—but as it stands, as long as it doesn't get in the way of your professionalism, I see no problem for a relationship to exist. Besides, I'm not sure I could, in good conscience, take something this important away from her, or especially you."

"Why especially me?"

She answered with only a look he didn't have to try to decipher before she stood.

"Well, that's all, then. We'll discuss your promotion another time. I'm sure you have things to do." She returned his smirk and waved her hand. "Shoo, then."

He began the walk back to the dungeons, a little dazed by her acceptance, and a little annoyed by the fact that she'd misled him into thinking they were going to discuss the promotion when she had ulterior motives.

But if it was going his way especially when it came to Minerva, he knew better than to question it.

-o-

Hermione threw down her quill and grabbed handfuls of her hair before making one loud, frustrated noise and sprawling out onto her stomach on Severus's bed. She'd been trying to write a letter to her parents, whom she intended to visit soon, for an hour now, to no avail. Nothing sounded right. Usually this was the highlight of her week, and it had never been even remotely difficult before; obviously something was lurking beneath the surface, but she could not figure out just what it was. Veritaserum probably couldn't even get it out of her, since she didn't know what _it _was.

While their Astronomy Tower date had been lovely, she'd felt a little off then too, even if minutely. She hadn't really noticed it at the time, but that night she'd lain awake, unable to sleep for hours after he'd fallen asleep, and something that was normally nice—the weight of his arm as it lay across her stomach—annoyed her. The four hours she'd spent not talking to him after their argument one of the days following the date had been spent seeing Ginny, though the feeling of something being 'off' never went away then, too. Ginny had even noticed a difference, but didn't press the issue when Hermione told the truth: that she didn't know.

But what had changed? She thought she might be getting sick, so she went to Madam Pomfrey and had her run a check-up; everything turned out fine. Nothing was out of the ordinary at all, except—_wait, could that be it?_—once when Severus was kissing her and moving his hands along her back, she'd thought of their conversation regarding the last time he'd gotten close to a woman. It had only been a brief thought, quickly extinguished by his lips on her neck, but she realised now that it should have been a clue.

_Lily...?_

Before she could explore this train of thought further, he interrupted again. Footsteps alerted her to his approaching presence, but she didn't even look up or even move her position, face-down in the covers.

"How'd it go," she stated more than asked, her voice muffled. She finally turned her head to look up at him.

"We actually didn't discuss plans," he shed his robes and unbuttoned the top two clasps of his shirt. "She knows about us."

"Hm, that's nice," she said blankly, trying to sort out the thoughts swirling in her head because she knew they wouldn't rest until she could find a way to pinpoint an exact, coherent thought.

Then she realised what he'd just said and scrambled to sit up, folding her legs in front of her.

"Wait a second, what?"

"Yeah," he gave a fraction of a shrug, furrowing his brow at her. "She asked if there was something going on between us, but she might as well have _told _me there was something going on. I just confirmed it."

"Are you fired? Am _I _fired?"

"No, and no," he sat down next to her. "I thought one of those would happen, but she just reiterated that the apprenticeship rules do not explicitly forbid it, and as long as we don't compromise our professionalism then we're free to continue this...us. You were right, then."

"Right?"

"When you said you doubted she'd be surprised. She was far from it, considering she was the one who brought it up."

"Oh, well, that's a relief," she shot him a look. "If, of course, you think it is."

"What? Why wouldn't I?"

She groaned and stood and began pacing back and forth.

"I don't know," she said, hands on her hips, her eyes on the floor while she worked through the fog in her mind, the state of which was tumultuous and not altogether unlike the sea during a shipwrecking storm.

"Obviously something's been going through your head," he said. "But you can't put your finger on it?"

"Obviously not," she snapped, shooting him another annoyed look. "I'd tell you if I knew."

He stood and crossed to her, and put his hands on her shoulders, stilling her. She stared at the sliver of skin revealed by the unbuttoned clasps.

"Look at me, Hermione."

She let her eyes meet his.

"You knew me before you were here," he said, his voice soft and low. "You know I wasn't better before you."

She sighed, letting her head fall forward onto his chest.

"I know," she placed her hands against his back, feeling the muscles beneath her fingers. "I guess I just need to be reminded."

"Yes," he said as his lips brushed the shell of her ear, "I do too."

Whatever elusiveness Hermione's unknown bothering thought had before dissolved quickly and suddenly some half-hour later, as their hands skated over bare skin and fingers intertwined—even as he breathed her name, the worry flashed in Hermione's mind with such clarity that she wondered how she hadn't known it before.

_Is he thinking of her?_

Sure, he'd said Hermione's name, but what if his mind was elsewhere? She wasn't aware she'd reacted to the realisation, but when he pulled his lips away from her skin and asked if she was okay, she nodded and pulled him in for another kiss as she tried to concentrate on what was going on now, trying to tell herself that she had time to worry about such things when they weren't sharing an intimate moment like this, but her mind wouldn't listen even as she enjoyed them moving together. He fell asleep not long after his shower afterward, but she wasn't afforded such luxury.

She sat up, leaning against the headboard, knees tented and drawn up to her chest, arms loose around them as she sorted through her mind. Lily Evans had been the subject of all his romantic energy spent in his young life since the inception of their friendship, even through Hogwarts and their separation into different Houses. She'd been the one to defend him and encourage him to excel in his schoolwork. She obviously hadn't encouraged him to join Voldemort, but he had free will, and ultimately he was the only master of his decisions. But, in death, Lily had been placed on a pedestal from which she could never fall.

Hermione was still alive, and so if he ever placed _her _on any sort of pedestal, she could fall or step down or crumble. Her theoretical plinth was shorter than Lily's anyway; her history with Severus was not of friendship, at least for seven years of their time of knowing one another. She'd defended him, but not against his peers and instead to peers of her own, and she knew she'd never encouraged him for any of that time, except perhaps to assign more detention and deduct more House points through her, Harry's, and Ron's behaviour.

And he'd said he'd never been close to Lily 'like this'—before squeezing her hip—so did that mean that, in those instances of passion and closeness with another human being—Hermione, he envisioned Lily instead of her? Was she just a placeholder? It was as though all the memories of him ever saying anything about being close to another person—the night she made him touch her scar and she'd asked him how long it had been, that was the one on the forefront of her mind—rushed back to her and she knew Lily had crossed his mind then. Was Hermione always the substitute? Instead of brown hair, did he see red, and instead of brown eyes did he see green? When his eyes clouded over with lust, was it really lust and his profound love for Lily mixing into one? Just profound love for her? Was it all a way to keep her amongst the living?

And now that Hermione's mind had figured out what the underlying issue was, it became fixated on it. She knew—_knew_, and she was rarely ever wrong—that she could never measure up to Lily.

Hermione fell asleep just three hours before she had to wake up—and she spent the time between her revelation and then reading from the Avery book—which had been the closest thing she'd grabbed off his bedside table. Her sleep wasn't a pleasant slumber, more of the toss-and-turn variety, and the thing she remembered the most about it was him waking up from her movements around 6:30 and shaking her awake to ask if she was all right. She responded with a half-hearted "absolutely" before they fell back asleep. By the time eight o'clock arrived, she felt worse than she had in months.

McGonagall acted no differently to them in the Great Hall at breakfast, but when Hermione snapped at Severus for calling fourth-year Braden Geschichte an 'incompetent rock-headed oaf' she earned a puzzled look from the older witch.

"You are such an unpleasant person sometimes," Hermione had said. "Couldn't you at least _try _to not be condescending about some of your students? He tries really hard in class, you know."

Then she'd continued eating her eggs as though the conversation never happened, before excusing herself early to keep from saying anything more. As she sat in the empty classroom waiting on classes to begin and Severus to return, she tried to tell herself to not focus on this whole Lily issue all day, to worry only about the tasks at hand and maybe even work a little on the tentative lesson plans if nobody needed her help.

Severus returned a few minutes before the first student of the day showed up.

"Are you all right?"

"Probably not," she answered shortly, thinking about what a stupid question it was.

He didn't get a chance to pursue this line of inquiry because then an overly-eager first-year who reminded Hermione a bit of herself at that age arrived and sat down at a table. Others soon followed and the day began. Hermione predicted it would be one of those long, excruciatingly slow ones, and was proven right when, by the time two o'clock rolled around, she was more than ready for a nap—or a Sleeping Draught so she could calm her mind and enter into dreamless, full sleep. Severus had assigned in-class essays for all classes, which meant Hermione would be busy for the next few days, but for the moment was stuck in an irritating, exhaustive limbo of doing nothing during the day.

Fortunately, Severus detected her lethargy and at the next class change, leaned over.

"Why don't you nap for a bit? I'll wake you for dinner," he said softly before pursing his lips into a thin line. "It's not like there's much for you to do anyway."

"Yeah," she stood, "and whose fault is that?" She added before whirling around and hurrying to her room.

Though it felt strange to be alone and in her room again, she was finally able to nap, even if she didn't feel much better afterward. Severus kept true to his word but woke her only by knocking. She peeled herself out of bed and made her way up to the Hall, his decision to go ahead of her not unnoticed. While in a conversation with Professor Flitwick, Hermione mentioned she was going to the library that night—something she'd been meaning to do all week but hadn't set aside a time to do it until now—and Severus spoke only to ask if she would pick up a book he'd also been meaning to get. She shot him a glare but when she returned to the dungeons after her trip, his was the book on the top of the pile she hugged to her chest.

"I presume you're ready to tell me what's wrong with you," Severus said without looking up from whatever kind of potion he was making—was it a Fire Protection Potion?—which made her think back to just months before.

"And just what makes you think that?"

"Because this is going to get us _nowhere_ and one would think you might be, oh, I don't know," he fixed her with a stare as his voice began to rise in volume, "tired of acting like a petulant child by now!"

She slammed the books down onto the side-table, placed her hands indignantly on her hips, and opened her mouth to speak when a movement caught the corner of her eye. Severus must have noticed it, too, because they turned at the same time to see none other than Alec Dawson peering around the doorframe.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she snapped, unable to stop the thought from bursting from her throat. So much for maintaining professionalism _there_. She squeezed her eyes shut as she berated herself for reacting as she had; how would she be a decent professor if Dawson was an obstacle she couldn't tackle?

"Leaving as soon as I can, _Miss_ Granger," Dawson sneered; Hermione noted Severus's body straightening a little and she scoffed.

"I assume he has no more for you to do?" said Severus, his voice devoid of any emotion or warmth seemingly without effort; Hermione walked over to the cupboard of ingredients and began aimlessly searching for something she didn't know to kill time while Severus and Dawson discussed whatever they had to discuss. She tried to tune them out as best she could and focus instead on the fact that no matter how many years it had been, she always recalled the night she, Harry, and Ron had stolen boomslang skin for Polyjuice Potion, the combination of ingredients' scents drawing to the forefront of her mind that time. She knew it made sense—something about the centre for smell being located just next to memory in the brain, but it always surprised her. She wondered absently if it still would when she was the one who was the Potions master.

The Potions master...it was a weird title to be associated with anybody _but _Severus Snape. She turned and looked at him and sighed. She had been wrong to be angry with him, especially when he had no idea as to the origin of her insecurities; she'd just let emotion get to her as it had in her past friendships and relationships alike, and it wasn't going to do either of them any good if she didn't just tell him.

"Now leave before I change my mind."

Hermione mentally tuned back in to hear Severus tell Dawson something she'd certainly heard before, and the boy offered a twisted smile and nodded once at Hermione—she just met it with a cold stare—before turning and hurrying from the room. With a wave of Severus's wand, the door slammed shut behind Dawson and Severus rounded on Hermione.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"He was still serving detention. I sent him to Hagrid because of his _constant _complaints that he's got so much to do—very hard, being the Care of Magical Creatures professor, I'm sure—"

"Okay, you can get back on point at any time," Hermione said irritably.

"—so I told him to come back when Hagrid had no more use for him and that I would know if he were lying to get out of detention. So, now he's finished, I suppose."

He frowned and smoothed his hands over the front of his robes. "Well, shall we continue? There will be no more interruptions."

The bolt on the classroom door slid shut and she stepped out of the cupboard.

"You were about to say something," Severus continued as she walked over and peered over at the potion still brewing. "If this is about the lesson plans again, we can discuss—"

"No, it's not about the bloody lesson plans!" Hermione exclaimed and began pacing back and forth, curling and uncurling a lock of hair around her finger, over and over again, endlessly. "This is so stupid. I'm going to sound like a—oh, what'd you say, petulant child?—about this, but I don't know why it—why it's like this."

She cast him a glance; he was staring at her, frowning really, and barely leaning forward on the desk on just his splayed fingertips.

"Just say it, Hermione." His voice was calm, but deceptively so. She knew he was close to exploding, and if she didn't spill it, she'd have to suffer whatever consequences his temper doled out.

"It started—I guess—the night we talked about your—your past with Lily—"

His face darkened.

"No, don't start that," she said firmly. "I know what you're thinking, that you're regretting ever sharing something with me, and I understand why you would think that but—it's," she sighed, pressing her palms to her closed eyes, trying to find words and push them together into a coherent sentence, "it's all me, it's my mind, because it just can't leave something alone."

"Should I be surprised?"

"Not funny."

"Don't be so foolish as to think I was trying to be funny. Continue."

She opened her eyes and glanced at the potion; it made no indication of being close to finished, and while she wasn't sure why that mattered, it did, and so she continued.

"I just couldn't help but wonder...or be afraid of...or, bollocks, I don't know—"

"Say it!" he said sharply, and she stared, wide-eyed, at him finally.

"Do you think of her? When we're...together?" she immediately began worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, and immediately began trying to decipher the range of emotions fluttering on his face. For once, there were many, but she couldn't read any of them—or her own mind was so scattered she couldn't get it focused enough to do so.

"That," he finally said after what seemed like an eternity, "is not ridiculous, nor a childish concern."

"What? I thought you'd...well, call me a stupid girl, or foolish, or something like that."

He walked over to the window, looking out and breathing deeply before he spoke slowly and deliberately.

"Months ago, I might have. But this isn't then."

He was quiet for a moment, and it felt like a small eternity.

"I know it can be hard to live up to the legacy of the dead," he finally answered, and she watched his fingers trace over the diamond pattern of the windowpanes, "but it's not something you need to concern yourself with. You two share a few traits, but," he turned to face her, "you are two very different people, with different lives and different personalities. It's not fair to you, or to her memory."

She didn't realise she'd stopped breathing until she felt a little dizzy, and she swallowed and began breathing normally again, tears stinging her eyes. She felt even sillier for letting her thoughts get out of control and for being worried about this in the first place.

"You're not a substitute, Hermione. You've never been anything but yourself to me...whether that be an insufferable girl who doesn't know when to let classmates try for participation in class," he smirked, "or a young woman I think about too much for my own good."

She let out a half-laugh, half-sob, and he crossed to her again, dragging his thumbs across her cheeks.

"You've been driving me mad acting like you have, you know," he said and returned to the bubbling cauldron on his desk; she could tell he was retreating back into Potions Master mode and thought briefly about how, while excited about being a professor on her own, she would miss the dynamic they'd developed here.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't know when I'd figure out what was bothering me, and then I couldn't bring myself to ask. It seemed so stupid."

"Next time, just ask, no matter how stupid you think it might be, because that was—"

"A taste of your own medicine, I think," she interrupted with a half-smile. He shot her a look.

"Don't get cocky."

-o-

The following day started out smoothly, with Hermione feeling as though a weight was off her chest and Severus relieved he wouldn't have to keep tabs on Dawson's detention anymore. But that all changed when Ginny pulled Hermione aside before the seventh-year Gryffindors' class just before lunch.

"We need to talk," she said in a hushed voice as the rest of the class filed in.

"Can't it at least wait until lunch? Then we can go somewhere?"

Ginny shook her head; Hermione's stomach turned.

"You might find out before then and I'd rather warn you."

"It can't be that bad," Hermione racked her mind for what Ginny's news might be, but she couldn't come up with anything as serious as her attitude.

"It's about him," Ginny nodded over toward Dawson, who was sitting in the second row. "He's telling people you two are...you know, more than what you seem." As Hermione's jaw dropped, Ginny put a finger up to her lips to keep her quiet. "I know. Don't say anything. I just wanted to warn you, because no matter what's true or not, you need to know."

Hermione took a deep breath, shutting her eyes. Dawson was determined to be the thorn in her side, no matter how long she'd gone thinking she was done with him, but she knew she had to do something about this. Because Ginny was right—no matter how true it was, she would need to address it, and sooner rather than later.

She couldn't help but wonder if she'd ever get done with this stage of things. The apprenticeship turned out to be saddling her with more and more every minute, and she didn't know when the breaking point might be.

-o-

**(A/N: **Firstly, deepest apologies for any grievous errors or typos. It's 3:30am and I have work in 5 hours and I was too lazy to proofread this one. So hopefully everything's okay! Anyway...another cliffhanger, or, at the very least, ~more tension~ to put onto poor Snape and Hermione! I am not too crazy about this chapter because I had a hard time just finishing it [Snape was VERY hard to write in this chapter, what's up with that?], but I hope you enjoyed it. More to come soon, hopefully! Time for more angsting! Woohoo!**)**


	14. Not actually a new chapter

Hi everyone,

For personal reasons, I am deleting this account _**Saturday**_ and starting over with a new one. I'm transferring all the stories, though, don't worry!

I'll save all the reviews and still have to get in touch with some of you. My computer was out of commission from October to January, so real life intervened. I'm busy so I can't promise updates promptly, but I'm constantly writing so let's hope!

Thanks—

SR


	15. Follow-up note (Sorry!)

Well, as you see, it's past Saturday and this is still up, but real life happened!

Anyway I will leave this up for a couple more days. I have gotten many reviews and PMs asking things I thought would just be easier to answer in a 'faux' chapter like last time!

-I am of course happy to PM anybody who wants a link to the new account – just ask and I'll add your name onto the list I'm compiling to do so once I've got it up and running and everything transferred over. If you've asked as of 7:30am on 20 March, I've got you. You'll get a PM once the new account is up. Let me know!

-Yes, all of the story titles, summaries, etc., will be the same for consistency's sake and also you guys or others can find them again!

-The account will be under the name **Leona Rose**. The only thing I'm really getting rid of is the 'Sorcha' that used to be in my pen name, and the URLs unique to this particular account.

Thank you ALL for your patience! I'm so sorry I haven't been around much, but I reached a breakthrough in chapter 14 for Serpentine so hopefully that'll be up soon to make up for it. I appreciate the continued loyalty of you all, especially those who have been with me for a long, long time!

-LR


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